


You have been connected

by Yuu_chi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Online Relationship, Phone Sex, Slow Build, Workaholic!Levi, because omegle is where lasting relationships are born
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-03 22:10:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 67,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/pseuds/Yuu_chi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Levi’s a business man, Eren’s a college student and they meet on Omegle. Twice. It kind of seems like fate after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The first conversation

_You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!_

_._

You: 19, m, us

_Stranger: Oh good, another mentally deficient shit stain upon this particular corner of the world_

You _:_ wat

_Stranger_ : _Excellent. Not even a full grasp of the English language._

You: this is omegle dude

You: nobody has a full grasp of the English language

_Stranger: That’s because it’s populated by retarded highschool brats with fucking shit for brains_

You: wow okay

You: im 19 btw

You: that’s college not highschool

_Stranger: I was working on the assumption you’ve been held back_

_Stranger: Oh? Are you really in college then or just trying to impress me now_

You: who the fuck would be trying to impress you

You: and im actually in college

_Stranger: the fact that your typing just jumped from pre-school to possible third-grade standards is what tells me you’re trying to impress me_

_Stranger: and calm yourself brat, I don’t care if you’re in highschool still_

_Stranger: To each their own_

You: fuck you! im in fucking college! im studying graphic design

You: what about you, huh?

You: i bet you’re secretly a paedophile who gets his rocks off harassing kids on the internet

_Stranger is typing…_

You: oh, got nothing to say to that then

_Stranger: Not everybody has the luxury of devoting their single functioning brain cell to a shit conversation they only initiated because they were bored, brat_

_Stranger: And how the fuck could anybody get their rocks off with your shitty grammar?_

You: oh, are you busy then

You: what are you doing

You: is it important

_Stranger: More important than maintaining this pathetic excuse for entertainment_

You: what does that mean you fuckface

You: oi

[ _Stranger has disconnected]_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the whole story won't be written in omegle conversation form guys, don't panic.


	2. The morning following

Eren yawned and scratched his nose with his pen.

He was tired and cold and nine am lectures were a particular brand of cruel that Eren didn’t think he really deserved quite this early in his life when the worst thing he’d ever done was break Jean’s nose a time or two and maybe set a few of Mikasa’s dolls on fire when they were younger.

(he still doesn’t think that counts anyway; Mikasa had never liked dolls to begin with.)

He hadn’t gotten to bed until four or five in the morning by the time he shut down his computer. The conversation with the dickhead on Omegle had given him a kind of restless energy born of anger, which, if Eren was being honest with himself – and that wasn’t something he frequently indulged in – was kind of pathetic.

The internet was full of dickheads with too much time on their hands, and Omegle was like their playground. Eren was used to language that could make a sailor cringe and being told to fuck himself in such explicitly sexual ways that Eren wasn’t even sure if half the suggestions were physically possible.

The thing was though; the stranger _hadn’t_ been like that. It would have been easier to brush off if he’d told Eren to slam his dick in a car door or something because that was the kind of shit you expected on a place like Omegle. No, what was the irritating thing was how he’d _talked down to Eren_. Like what the _fuck_? Who the fuck did he think he was? The abrupt disconnect had been almost as humiliating and Eren was glad nobody had been there to see the way he’d sworn at his screen because _nobody_ wanted to be that kid that got mad at strangers on the internet.

The professor was winding down his speech and Eren hastened to gather his book, stuffing his pen behind his ear and hauling his bag up over his shoulder. Any other time of the day and he’d probably be causing a blockage in the middle of the room as students tried to shove past him on the way out of the lecture row, but the one advantage of morning lectures was that everybody surrounding him looked like they were only just now waking from a light doze.

Eren could relate. Morning lectures were like taking a hit from a drip of morphine.

He sidled out into the breadth of space between one row and the next and headed for the door, holding his breath to ease past the other students who were emerging from their seats with vacant expressions. Eren winced as someone yawned in his face and a smell like burnt peppermint gusted by.

“Gross,” he muttered as he leant away and rushed the rest of the way to the door.

“Jaeger!” His professor called from the front of the room and Eren paused, debating feigning deafness and wriggling out of the room before the oncoming crowd crushed him. “I need to speak to you.” It wasn’t a question and Eren gave an irritated sigh as he stepped out of the way of the door, waiting out the ebb and flow of students before trekking back down to the pit of the lecture hall where Professor Pixis was shuffling papers on his desk.

“Professor,” he greeted grudgingly as the last of the morning students trickled out, shifting a little uncomfortably as his grip tightened on his bag strap. He had a feeling he knew what this was about.

Pixis looked up from his papers and smiled, eyes crinkling a little around the edges. “Jaeger,” he greeted in return. “It feels – to this old man – that you’ve been avoiding me.”

“You’re not that old, sir,” Eren said automatically before biting at his lip and glancing to the side.

Pixis laughed and leant forward to ruffle his hair like Eren was in grade school instead of College – and great, now he was back to thinking about that dick on Omegle.

“Be that as it may, you haven’t submitted your final assignment form yet. It was due last week.”

Eren stared uncomfortably at a spot beyond Pixis’ shoulder. “I know. Sorry, sir. It’s, um, I’ve been busy.”

Even from the corner of his eye he could see the almost pitying look Pixis gave him and it sent a wave of irritation rolling down his spine. Eren didn’t do well with things like pity, but Pixis was still his professor and Eren was making a concentrated effort to not repeat his high school mistakes of badmouthing every figure of authority in a ten-foot radius.

“Eren,” Pixis said, and Eren winced because the shift from last name to first was usually a good indicator that he was going to be reduced to a puddle of crippling guilt in a minute. “You’re not a very talented liar. If you’ve not settled on a concept for your final piece, you’re allowed to admit it.”

“Sorry,” Eren muttered, still staring at the row of seats just above Pixis’ left shoulder.

“Don’t be sorry,” Pixis admonished. “Just tell me the truth. I’m hardly going to fail you for a creative block; but I do still need that form.” Eren didn’t answer and Pixis sighed. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you an extension on the form – until the end of the month – but I expect you to call by my office after my next class. I’ll lend you some books and maybe we can wrangle some inspiration into you. Okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Eren said gratefully before tacking on a hurried: “Thank you.”

Pixis gave him a small smile before turning back to his stack of papers. “That’s alright. You can go now, I’m sure I’ve held up your morning long enough.”

Eren thanked him one last time – because if it were any other Professor he would probably been in for a world of hurt – before scurrying back down the lean isle between the seats and bursting out into the crisp morning air – managing to bump right into Armin who had been waiting patiently outside for his lecture to finish.

“Jesus, Eren,” Armin gasped as he stumbled backwards, rubbing one hand along his winded chest before looking at him accusingly. “You’re late.”

Eren grunted in apology but only stopped long enough to wrap steady fingers around Armin’s feather-thin wrist – Eren had been trying to fatten him since third grade, but Armin’s body seemed to reject the very notion of fat, like it did anything that wasn’t knowledge – and hauled him along the crooked stone path and away from the Lecture hall and in the general direction of the nearest campus cafe.

“Caffeine,” he groaned. “Caffeine and then we’ll talk.”

Armin laughed at him like the cruel bastard he was, and Eren’s heart gave something like a contented shudder in his chest.

Since starting college, he hadn’t been able to see Armin nearly as much. It was kind of to be expected, Armin had told him that was what happened when people went to college, but Eren had always been really good at ignoring things until they were right up in his face. Armin was studying business and finance at the opposite side of campus, with a good old side helping off mythology and medicine – Eren didn’t even pretend he understand that particular combination – and Eren was studying graphic design and art. They shared one class on marketing and that was pretty much it.

Eren knew he had a tendency to be unreasonable possessive of his friends. He’d tried hard to break it as they got older, because while having Mikasa and Armin was more than enough for Eren, he hadn’t wanted to hold Armin back – however unintentionally – from making more friends of his own. Armin had laughed at Eren’s consideration like a brat and nothing had changed until now where Eren was lucky to see Armin more than a few times a month.

And it hurt a bit, because Eren couldn’t quite forget daily rounds of Mario Kart and living just down the road from one another. And yeah, even he could admit to himself that he was a little bit lonely.

“If I buy you coffee, will you let me go before I have to learn to become ambidextrous?” Armin asked. His tone was amused, but Eren dropped his wrist as quick as he could.

“Yeah, sorry. Didn’t mean to assault you,” He sighed and ran a jittery hand through his hair, pushing the uneven strands out of his face. He noted he was probably due for a haircut soon, which was a pain. He usually just had Mikasa do it, but he supposed that was just another one of those things he was going to have to adjust to doing on his own. “I’m just tired as balls, man. I don’t know who I upset in a past life to wind up with a morning lecture, but I swear I’m sorry for it.”

Armin didn’t even look sympathetic as he swung the campus shop’s door open with a little jingle of the bell. “Well,” he said, in what Eren knew from a childhood of agony was his I-told-you-so voice, “Maybe if you didn’t leave class registration to the last possible second….”

“Oh my god, you are never going to let that go, are you?” Eren grouched as he leant on the counter. “I told you, it was confusing. I’m studying arts not navigation.”

Armin ignored him entirely and smiled cheerfully at the freckle faced boy behind the counter. “Hi Marco, good morning?”

With anybody else, it would have been a greeting. With Armin, it was a genuine question. Eren fought back a smile because Armin could be the most adorable asshole in the world sometimes, and seriously, he loved the guy like a brother.

“Not bad,” Marco grinned, already scrawling their names on a set of cups because he was amazing like that. “Usual?”

“Please,” Eren nearly begged. “With as much sugar as you’re legally allowed to put in.”

Marco laughed good-naturedly and shuffled off to make the coffee while Armin gave him a dubious side-long look. “What time do you go to bed, Eren? And do I need to tell Mikasa?”

“Okay, first off: please don’t tell Mikasa. I would not put it past her to get back on a plane and fly all the way back here just to kick my worthless ass.”

“She only does it because –.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eren waved with a half-hearted grimace. “She does it because she cares. I know. But she’s not mom, okay? And she can’t keep trying to be. She’s got her own shit to worry about other than me.” Armin opened his mouth to say something else, but Eren cut him off. “And secondly: I couldn’t get to sleep until, like, five. Just wait until I tell you about this asshole I met on Omegle. Seriously, you’re not going to believe it.”

“Omegle, Eren. Really?” Armin pulled a face just as Marco set their coffees down. Armin forked over the five bucks necessary while Eren had barely enough attention span left to wave at Marco as they headed for a set of seats on the opposite side of the shop, slurping loudly enough on his coffee that Armin outright winced at him.

“Oh, like chat roulette is so much better.”

“I haven’t been on chat roulette since I was twelve, Eren,” Armin sighed matter-of-factly as they took their seats. “I really don’t know why you still bother with that internet rubbish.”

_Because I’m lonely. Because, if I’m lucky, I see you once a week. Because we haven’t played Xbox since senior year. Because I even miss Mikasa’s fucking nagging_.

Eren swallowed the almost angry words that rose bitter and violent at the back of his throat. It wasn’t Armin’s fault. He couldn’t take it out on him like that. He pasted a pretty shitty excuse for a smile on his lips and focused his attention on his coffee. “You know me, just procrastinating and stuff. Anything that isn’t doing schoolwork.”

Armin made a show of rolling his eyes, but Eren could see the way that his mouth twitched with practised ease. “So are you going to tell me about this omegle asshole or not?”  He asked, and Eren grinned and leant forward.

.

Eren shouldered his way into his dormroom with a grunt, one arm balancing a stack of textbooks against his hip and the other wriggling the handle to the door back and forth in a pretty pathetic attempt to jiggle his key free from where it was stuck solidly in the lock.

He growled under his breath as he felt the handle give and the key come loose. “Fucking broken doors,” He grumbled as he tripped over a stray sneaker and stumbled into the room.

His door swang languidly shut behind him as he dumped the ridiculous amount of books on his bed with a soft groan. He could have sworn he heard his shoulder pop as he rolled it in a steady circle, trying to ease the cramping.

Pixis had been more than generous with his loan and Eren had staggered out of his office just after twelve heaped with books from abstract to classical painting and the sheer weight of the hefty tomes had been enough to nearly make Eren regret not just turning in his form with some bullshit explanation about his final project that he didn’t even really intend to follow through on.

The art class was his minor; a nice addition to the major in graphic design Eren was chasing and, if he were being honest, probably his real passion. Graphic design was nice and all – it was a lot like Art – but it didn’t have the same appeal as lead dragging soft over paper or the smell of acrylics settling on canvas. He suspected – no, if he were being honest, and wow he was doing that lot today, he _knew_ – that he put more effort into his art projects than the rest of his coursework combined.

He was never going to submit a rushed form and bullshit his final project. Not with this class anyway.

Sighing, Eren gave his shoulder one more roll before collapsing in his desk chair.

It was too late now to bother going back to bed, and Eren didn’t have another class until five in the evening. He could probably cram in a few hours of flicking through the books Pixis had lent him before calling down to the coffee shop for a late lunch/possible early dinner, but Eren’s brain was fried and he was running on fumes.

He glanced longingly at his bed, shoved in the corner behind the door and covered in art books before his phone shuddered once – twice – in his pocket and he sighed.

He didn’t even check the id as he pressed into to his ear. “It’s like six in the morning over there, go back to bed Mikasa.”

“Armin says you’re not sleeping well.”

“Oh my god, that little – I _told_ him not to bother you,” Eren groaned as he ran a hand through his hair in frustration because he wasn’t twelve anymore, and Armin didn’t have to report his every move to Mikasa.

Mikasa didn’t sound the least bit impressed. “Eren, if something’s wrong I want to know.”

“There’s _nothing_ wrong, I swear. I was just up late goofing off, you know? There’s no reason for you to get up at the crack of dawn to call me. Jesus, don’t you have some tournament thing today? You need your sleep.”

“It’s just try-outs,” Mikasa answered dismissively, like that was the problem here. “And it’s not a problem. I’ll be fine.”

Eren sighed, but couldn’t stop the proud smile from tugging slightly at his lips. “Yeah, I know you will. But you should get some sleep anyway.”

The phone went silent and Eren frowned, pulling it away from his ear to see if the call had dropped out, but no, it was still running fine. “Hey, are you there? Mikasa?”

“I’m here. It’s just… I _miss_ you.”

Eren closed his eyes and leant back in his chair. “Yeah, I know. I miss you too, okay? But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to keep missing sleep to call me. You’re not the only one who worries.”

Mikasa made a small noise on the other end of the phone and Eren hoped to dear god she wasn’t crying, because he wasn’t awake enough to deal with his sister having an emotional breakdown over separation anxiety right now.

“Hey, it’s alright. You’re off kicking butt with your martial arts thing –.”

“– It’s Judo, Eren –.”

“– and I’m studying, and everything’s okay, okay? You weren’t going to be able to follow me around forever, Mikasa.”

The silence this time was short. “Okay,” she said and Eren sighed in relief.

“I’m going to hang up now, and you’re going to go back to bed and if you call before Saturday, I’m not picking up the phone.”

“But –.”

“You can text me your results though, I wanna hear how you went. Good luck at the try-outs.”

Mikasa sighed. “Okay, love you.”

“Love you too,” Eren said, and hung up before she could say anything else, tossing his phone onto the desk and sliding down in his chair as he rubbed at his head.

He was getting a headache. It was way too early for any of this – by Eren’s admittedly fucked up biological clock – and he knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t be able to focus on studying or art or anything at all right now, not until he worked off some of the irritation boiling his veins.

His glance flickered over to his gym bag lying sad and crumpled where it was jamming open the door of his closet. _An hour at the gym_ , he decided, _and then maybe I’ll harass some strangers online for a bit_.

Eren got to his feet with a groan, feeling the ripple of tension in his muscles. An hour of running until he could barely stand and punching out his pent-up aggression on bags of hard sand sounded like heaven right about now. And if he imagined some faceless prick from Omegle while doing it that was for him to know and the rest of the world to never, ever find out about.

Bending to scoop of his bag and toss it haphazardly over his shoulder, Eren cast one last look at his blackened monitor before heading for the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter will be out before Christmas, I promise. Thanks for all the interest - which took me completely off guard!


	3. The second conversation

Levi stared at the empty computer screen before him, took a deep breath and told himself – for the second time this morning – that murder probably wouldn’t solve any of his problems, no matter how good it would feel.

“What part,” he asked through tightly clenched teeth, “of save your work regularly was not understood?”

The man – really more of a kid, not even six months out of college yet – was white as a sheet and looked about ready to shit himself if Levi made any sudden movements in his general direction.

 _Good_ , Levi thought viciously because his morning was half gone to shit as it was and he seriously did not have time for this kind of mediocre screw-up. The kid should have known better. Levi wasn’t going to baby him, especially when this mistake – forgetting to save the document and accidently kicking a power cord loose, Jesus – meant that hours of work was effectively gone from this world.

“Sorry –.” The kid started to say but physically flinched away when Levi turned his cool gaze upon him. Levi wished he could feel some kind of satisfaction at the amount of sway a simple glance had on the shit-for-brains new-hires that Hanji insisted on sending his way, but mostly he just felt a bone-deep sense of burning irritation.

“You can save your words for someone who fucking cares,” he grunted as he pushed himself away from the desk and out of the chair. “What I need from you right now is for you to redo every piece of work your shitty memory just cost us. And don’t you even think about lifting your ass from this chair until you do.”

Levi had never seen somebody scramble back to their desk so fast; the scent of fear was almost tangible in the air.

He stayed standing behind him for a minute or two, just long enough to make sure the kid knew what he was doing. Levi might be strict – probably cruel too – but he wasn’t unfair. When it became apparent that he could manage the data restoration on his own with an acceptable degree of competence – once his fingers stopped shaking long enough to type – Levi backed away and high-tailed it to the kitchen.

His morning had been less of a morning than a continuation of the previous day. Levi honestly couldn’t remember the last time he slept.

The company was in the middle of a massive merger which, while exciting news for people who actually gave a shit, generated more work in the months leading up to it than they probably had to deal with all goddamn year. The fact it happened to coincide with their usual hiring period had turned the workload from painful-but-tolerable to near crippling.

Levi was fixing rookie mistakes by day – witness junior there who couldn’t even fucking click a save button – and attending to his own work at night after he shuffled home with more papers than he knew what to do with and a culmination of stress he was sure would result in either his death or somebody else’s at his own hands fairly soon, although he couldn’t say with certainty which.

The kitchen area was empty much too Levi’s immeasurable relief and he reached for the coffee pot with something that was probably desperation and most definitely more than a little alarming.

The coffee was shit – too hot and tasted like the burnt black-stuff that sticks to the bottom of age-old frying pans – but it was caffeinated and Levi was shit tired. It wasn’t quite four yet and Levi had probably about five more hours of tedium before he could pack up and pretend like he was going to get any rest the moment he went home.

The sound one of the chairs made as he pulled it back from the tiny kitchen-area table grated along his frazzled nerves and he gritted his teeth and focused on the burning of his palm where his coffee mug was cradled to stop himself from doing something crazy stupid like tossing it through the mother fucking window.

The grunt he let out as he collapsed into it was in no way elegant but he really couldn’t be assed caring.

He’d called it quits on paperwork at about one in the morning when his eyes would no longer focus and the pinch of his reading glasses on the bridge of his nose was giving birth to a truly epic headache. If Levi could even half-competently imitate a normal human being he would have booked it to bed the moment he threw his glasses on his desk – but conformity had never been one of his strong suits, really, and by that point he was so frustrated and wound-up he’d known without a doubt that he wasn’t going to be getting any sleep until he could outlet some of the tension boiling thick in his veins.

So he’d done the next best thing and ripped some poor fucks a new one on the internet because Levi was a sad excuse for a human being that found being an asshole relaxing. It was practically second nature to him at this point and he had a good thirty-odd years of practice at it.

Levi took a contemplative sip of his coffee, frowned at the way it slid thick like oil-grease on his tongue, but decided it was ultimately cool enough to actually consume without an impromptu trip to the ER and shifted his grip slightly so he could hold it in his unique style.

Nineteen and in college, huh? Fuck, Levi wondered what it was like to be that young again with your whole life teetering on the decisions you were about to make. He could barely remember; he recalled being a complete dumbfuck and making some of the stupidest choices of his life in that general teen-young adult period of his existence, but he’d done such a good job suppressing them it seemed a shame to drag them up now.

Levi sighed, cricked his neck and took another sip of the god-awful excuse for coffee.

He should probably find out who was in charge of making this shit and have them fired for poor job performance. Work was miserable enough without somebody trying to poison them all.

He was just leaning back in his chair with the intention of taking five minutes to finish his coffee and catch his breath when a loud knock on the doorframe startled his eyes back open although he could have hazarded a guess without the unneeded hassle.

True to form Hanji stood in the doorway, grinning cheerfully with a clipboard tucked under her arm. “How’s my favourite little grumpy-butt doing?”

Levi let his eyes slip closed again. “If this isn’t life or death you can leave otherwise I’m going to have to throw this coffee at you and that won’t be great for either of us.”

“I fail to see how inflicting third-degree burns on me has a downside for you.”

“I really don’t want to see if this looks as bad as it tastes. Might as well be drinking my own shit.”

Hanji laughed and leant forward to ruffle his hair. “I see your humour is as crappy as always.”

“My humour is fine,” Levi grunted as he caught her wrist mid-movement and flung it away with disgust, opening his eyes to glare irately at her. “Don’t you have somebody else to bother? Shit to do? I can have you fired for loitering around here like a lost piglet, you know.”

“But you won’t,” she said with complete confidence and a gleeful grin. “Because then who would have the courage to come bother you while you’re sitting in here looking like you’re contemplating decapitating that poor boy with the computer error?”

“He kicked the goddamn power cord out,” Levi snapped as he thumped his mug back on the table. “That’s user error not computer error. Shit should be grateful I’m not confiscating his feet until he learns this isn’t preschool.”  

Hanji gave no sign of having heard him except to smile wider and hum under her breath as she flipped past a few pages on her clipboard. “But since you asked so nicely,” she said, continuing on like Levi had never spoken, “I do have a legitimate reason for coming to see you. Not that I ought need one, mind, seeing as how I’m one of your oldest and dearest friend.”

“You’re a nuisance is what you are,” Levi growled.

“– It’s about the merger. Erwin wanted me to check if you’d looked into compiling the list of candidates for transfer.”

Levi frowned. “I thought I didn’t need to have that done for another month?”

“You don’t,” Hanji assured him. “Erwin just wanted to pass on some information about it, although that’s probably his passive aggressive way of reminding you.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “I said I’d do it. Does he realize how much work this merger generates? The kids you keep sending me barely have half a brain between them so guess who winds up doing anything that’s beyond basic multiplication?”

“Oh, they’re not that bad,” Hanji smiled, fingers tapping absently in a fidget along her clipboard. “You’re just a grumpy old man who doesn’t like young blood usurping your position.”

“Usurping? This isn’t that ridiculous television show of yours, Jesus.”

“Ridiculous?” Hanji huffed. “I’ll have you know _Game of Thrones_ is –.”

Levi waved a hand absently over the beginning of her tirade. “I could care less. Just email me whatever shit it is Erwin wants me to look over. I’ll do it tonight.”

Hanji’s smile split suddenly into something that looked like a frown and for a moment Levi thought she might try to convince him that it could wait, that he should take the night off. She didn’t though, and for that Levi was glad because the idea of how far behind he’d be if he took an evening to himself was admittedly a little frightening.

Levi cleared his throat and leant back in his chair again, closing his eyes once more. “If that’s all, you  can fuck off now. I just want a moment of peace.”

It was and she did and Levi had just reached for his coffee again when a voice called shakily from the office.

“Uh, sir? Something’s happened to the document again.”

 _Fucking hell_.

.

Levi’s evening consisted of sorting through a mind-boggling number of applicants for the merger transfer and greasy Chinese take-away that left his stomach queasy and a smell like too much cabbage lingering on his desk.

He hadn’t been this exhausted since he wrote his university thesis. Numbers blurred like ink smudges before his eyes and it was through sheer persistence that he was even able to sort through the massive number of attached documents Erwin had sent him like the little fucker Levi knew he secretly was.

He wanted nothing more than to take a warm shower and let the tension curling in knots come undone as he headed to bed but Levi’s exhaustion was so complete and extreme that he’d crossed the line from wandering thoughts and fluttering eyelids into complete and total alertness where his brain felt like a ticking time-bomb and static scrambled at his eardrums like a broken television set.

Levi’s problems had always manifested like that. An irritation in his skull, at the back of his mind, like an itch that couldn’t possibly be scratched.

Sighing, he peeled his glasses off and let them drop – although not without care – beside his keyboard, rubbing almost absently at the indent they’d left on his skin.

He should take that shower at least, even if he knew the siren call of his bed was a far-off hope, but it was either a shower to relax now or a shower to wake up in the morning and Levi had made more than a few bad calls in the past to know that his choice was already made for him.

The clock on his computer screen read two in the morning. Levi bit his lips and scrolled absently with his mouse as he turned over numbers in his head.

Two am wasn’t really that late by all accounts. He could probably give himself an hour of bitching people out on the internet like a hormonal teenage brat and then another hour of working whatever stress was left out at the private gym downstairs in his apartment complex. He’d be in bed no later than five and that gave him two hours sleep before work.

It was a better plan than an angry jerk-off session in the shower and five hours of wishing the white noise in his head would go the fuck away.

Levi carefully closed down all his work programmes, making mental notes about what still needed to be done and what shit he could probably pile off on whoever had the unfortunate luck of replacing the kid he’d fired yesterday. When that was done Levi closed down his work laptop and placed it to the side of his desk before twisting around to boot up his actual computer.

His job paid well and Levi made no bones about it. He earned every fucking dollar he had through hard work and effort. And if he wanted to splurge on an office-sized desk for his home and a thousand-odd dollar computer with two screens, he fucking would.

(that’s not to mention the Italian coffee press sitting proud and gleaming in his kitchen like the work of art it was. It could make a blind man cry it was so gorgeous. )

People were often surprised to learn that Levi – hard ass, workaholic Levi – spent enough time on the net that he felt the need to have a computer station fit for the messiah Jesus himself. People assumed – _wrongly,_ like the dumbfucks they were – that considering Levi’s job involved a lot of sitting at a desk and staring at things on a screen, he’d probably avoid that shit like the plague when he was on downtime.

It wasn’t that Levi did anything particularly important with his set-up. He didn’t game or edit or draw or anything that would probably require the sheer amount of processing power he had at his disposal, but Levi spent a lot of time at the goddamn computer and like fucking hell it was going to run like rubbish.

Booting up his explorer he clicked absently between pre-opened tabs, leaning heavily on one hand as he flicked through message boards and communities he was a part of. Socialising had never come easy to Levi – he couldn’t comprehend why people would want to spend all day everyday talking and chatting and _interacting_ with others – but the freedom the internet offered him was enormous. He could talk to people on _his_ terms. When he was done with a conversation all he had to do was click a button and it was over. It allowed him to alleviate that small tug at his mind that he refused to call loneliness without any of the hassle of real-life connections.

His gaze flickered to an open window to the right and the cheerful blue and orange text encouraging him to ‘ _talk to strangers_!’

His mind instantly flickered back to the one actual conversation he’d managed on the site the previous night and he would have smirked if he wasn’t so exhausted. He settled for a half-assed sneer at the screen – like it could even see him – and clicked a start chat button.

Levi couldn’t even justify to himself why he used a site aimed at twelve to eighteen year olds as a substitute for meaningful human connections. Saying ‘ _I’m thirty-four and have a conversation with someone who doesn’t work for me maybe once a week’_ was verging on pathetic.

The first connection was a standard ‘asl’ request that was so tediously boring Levi disconnected instantly. The second one wasn’t much better and the third one provided Levi a link of what he presumed was probably somebody jacking off but wasn’t go to click to find out for obvious reasons. He made a few snide comments about dick size anyway and received an influx of insults that pretty much confirmed his guess. The anger, while amusing, was grammatically incorrect enough that he couldn’t enjoy it fully.

His next few connections were slightly smoother and Levi traded lazy conversation back and forth for a while before he tired of the boring renditions of _where are you from_ and _what do you do for a living_.

The only reason he was bothering with this particular excuse for internet entertainment was to argue, but in a way that was less about how many times somebody could use the word ‘fag’ in a sentence and more about releasing the slow curl of irritation bubbling in his blood.

He thought of the college brat who had bitten back at him and sighed.

He disconnected from his current conversation – some teenage wanker in nowhere Alaska – and decided on one more conversation before he headed off to pound out a dozen miles on a treadmill.

_You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!_

Before Levi could even move his fingers to the keys, his partner was talking.

_Stranger: good morning/afternoon/evening_

Levi snorted.

_You: Nice attempt at covering all bases, if a bit pathetic._

_Stranger: its the thought that counts_

_Stranger: thats what ive been told anyway_

Levi was tempted to answer that with a deliberately malicious reply, but he found himself amused with the kids sass despite himself. This was interesting. This was what he’d been searching for. He didn’t want to risk an instant disconnect.

_You: You’ve been told wrong then kid_

_You: The thought stopped counting long ago_

The reply was instant:

_Stranger: goddamnit im not a fucking kid_

_Stranger: you cant be that much older than me_

They knew the difference between then and than. Levi was depressingly impressed.

_You: Pretty sure that’s none of your business_

_You: I might be sixty, you’d never know shit_

_Stranger: nah if you were sixty your fingers would be too wrinkly to type_

Levi had no clue how this one kid had more spunk than the ten other people he’d talked to tonight combined.

_Stranger: and im 19 btw_

_Stranger: thats older than pretty much most people on here_

Levi blinked. Nineteen, huh? He frowned and flexed his fingers, suddenly perturbed despite himself.

_You: You might be surprised brat_

_You: I talked to an annoying shit just last night who was nineteen_

The screen went silent. It was an off thing to say about something that was no more than glass and metal, but it was the best analogy Levi could come up with. For a moment Levi thought the kid might be reaching for the disconnect button, and the thought didn’t so much dishearten him, exactly, as it did annoy him.

_Stranger is typing…_

The words flickered for a second before vanishing. Levi frowned.

_Stranger is typing…_

_Stranger: last night_

_Stranger: you talked to a 19 year old last night_

_Stranger: a 19 year old ‘brat’_

Levi’s mouth went dry and something clicked in his brain. _You have got to be shitting me_ , he thought, but his fingers were already typing.

_You: Are you fucking with me right now?_

_Stranger: NO_

_Stranger: HOLY SHIT_

_Stranger: YOURE THE ASSHOLE WHO ACCUSED ME OF BEING HELD BACK IN HIGHSCHOOL_

_Stranger: WTF_

There were over 22,000 people online. Over 22,000 people online and Levi had somehow managed to connect to not only somebody whom he’d previously connected, but the one person whose conversation had been interesting enough to remember.

Levi didn’t have to be the genius he goddamn was to know those odds was astronomical.

_You: Are you stalking me?_

_You: Because that shit is disgusting_

_Stranger: dude how the fuck would i stalk you through omegle?_

_Stranger: omg i cant believe this shit actually happens in real life_

Levi privately agreed and he still wasn’t completely past staring at his monitor in shock. The stranger kept typing.

_Stranger: i mean, if I’d been two seconds later getting back from the gym or left a minute earlier we wouldnt have connected_

His interest piqued despite himself and his fingers were already typing out a reply before he could decide whether he should just hit disconnect and pretend like this whole thing had never happened.

_You: I was about to hit the gym too_

_You: This was my last connection before I left_

_Stranger: thats even weirder!_

_Stranger: if I’d come back from the gym later or you left for the gym earlier …_

The surreal feeling had faded somewhat and Levi found himself able to type out something with his usual deadpan snark.

_You: If you say something shitty like fate I’m going to disconnect right now_

_Stranger: does that mean youll stay on if i don’t?_

Levi paused and stared. Did it? He glanced at the clock. He’d been at the computer for over an hour. This was cutting into his gym time. The shock of connecting with the brat again had all but galvanised his slowly unwinding nerves and he knew without a doubt that if he didn’t do something about the tension coiling tight like a spring in his stomach he was likely to explode at work later and that was something nobody needed.

Still, he somehow found himself reluctant to just disconnect and move on. That was a new feeling.

_You: Sorry brat, but playtime is over_

_You: Grownups need their sleep_

The reply came even quicker than before.

_Stranger: oh shit_

_Stranger: i forgot that youre probably in a different time zone_

_Stranger: just quickly before you go whats your name?_

Levi probably should just go.

_You: Princess fucking Peach. What the fuck does it matter?_

He paused for a second.

_You: It’s Levi_

He had no fucking clue what he was doing.

_Stranger: I’d say nice to meet you but it really hasnt been_

_Stranger: youre kind of an ass_

_Stranger: my names eren_

_I didn’t ask your name_ , Levi wanted to bite back. He stared at the screen. Did he really want to do this? He sighed. _Fuck it._

_You: Now I get one question before I leave fuckface_

_Stranger: ok shoot_

Levi didn’t even hesitate this time.

_You: Do you have facebook, Eren?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a build up type of person. I like to jam character development down the throat of anybody who will sit still long enough.


	4. The first phonecall

Eren awoke to the cold press of morning air on his bare back and the dull sound of clattering metal on wood.

Sometime during the night he’d kicked the covers free – he’d always been a restless sleeper – and they were now pooled uselessly at the foot of the bed in a disconcerting tangle around his feet, pulling tight at his ankles when he shifted slightly on his mattress. Blinking hazily at the light filtering in through his crooked curtains it took another buzz to his left to even remember what had woken him in the first place.

Fumbling with sleep-thickened fingers he reached for his phone.

**_Received New Text Message: Levi – 9:43  
_ ** _You better not still be sleeping_

**_Received New Text Message: Levi – 9:44  
_ ** _Because I could have sworn someone was bitching last night about having to work today_

Eren hoisted himself up so he could lean against the wall, smothering a yawn as he tapped out a reply and thanking god for autocorrect because he was never the most eloquent texter but sleep robbed him off all motor functions whatsoever.

_im up im up. arent you at work atm anyway?_

It had been one week since Eren had chanced upon Levi for that second time on omegle. One week since they’d gone past exchanging facebook details to instant messaging addresses, emails and – _finally_ – numbers and Eren wasn’t even sure he could remember how that had _happened_.

Whatever anger he’d felt for Levi after their first disastrous connection had long since evaporated into a confusing puddle of bemusement and awe because Levi wasn’t like anybody Eren had ever known and he couldn’t for the life of him figure him out – They _clicked_ though, and that wasn’t something Eren had done with anybody in a long time.

His phone shuddered in his hand again and Eren squinted through sleepy eyes at the screen.

**_Received New Text Message: Levi – 9:49  
_ ** _I’m on break._

Eren chuckled and thumbed out one final reply – _dont need to get so prissy im just saying_ – before dropping his phone back to his side table and hauling himself out of bed with a groan frankly alarming for somebody who wasn’t even twenty yet.

For three hours twice a week Eren worked for the head of the Art department running errands and restocking the arts rooms and virtually anything else that needed to be done but everybody else considered themselves too important to do. Normally, Eren didn’t really mind that much. He found the smell of oil paints and papers relaxing and it gave him time to think.

 The fact that he was still avoiding Pixis like the plague complicated things slightly though.

Sighing, Eren dredged up a reasonably clean pair of jeans and a shirt that he was fairly certain he’d washed recently before shuffling off half-asleep to brush his teeth and maybe throw some cold water on his face.

Wandering down the halls Eren squeezed by three or four other people who were walking past, some with toast jammed between their teeth and others with bags slung haphazardly over their shoulders on their way to or from class. Eren’s dorm somehow managed to be both large and cramped all at once; he supposed it was the cost of three hundred-odd people living in one building – student living at its best.

Pushing open the bathroom door he gave the shape hunched over the sink area a tired wave and uncapped his toothpaste. “Morning, Reiner. Thought you had class at nine?”

Reiner grunted around his brush before spitting a mouthful of foam in the sink. “Too tired.”

“Couldn’t sleep?” Eren asked as he turned on the tap. His mind flashed over to Levi and the absurd hours he kept – ‘ _adults have to work brat, it’s a fact of life’_ – and he wondered guiltily if maybe he was partially to blame for his chaotic sleep schedule these days.

“Not through the noise,” Reiner sighed, scruffing an annoyed hand through his short blonde hair and dabbing at his mouth with the towel slung over his shoulders with the other. “Another party upstairs last night.”

Eren finished scrubbing and spat viciously in the sink. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

Reiner cast him a fond look. “That’s because you never do. I swear Eren, you sleep like a rock. Once you’re out it takes an act of god to raise you.”

“That’s not true,” Eren protested even though it kind of was. Once he was asleep only a few things could rouse him before he was ready – the sound of his phone or the shriek of his alarm – and while it had been an annoyance to all and sundry when he was younger, it did come in handy for communal living.

Reiner snorted and cuffed him on the back of the head without any real malice as he gathered his stuff to leave. “I’ve got to get going. You’re working today, yeah? Have fun and don’t break anything.”

“Jesus, fall out a window one time and nobody lets it go,” Eren sighed. Reiner laughed, patted him on the shoulder and left.

Eren splashed some water on his face and shivered at the chill on his skin before looking up at the mirror and wincing.

His reflection was pale and dark circles rimmed his eyes. It was nothing short of a miracle that Reiner had the tact not to mention it and he was immensely glad that Mikasa was in another country entirely because one glimpse of his face probably would have sent her into protective overload.

Even with Pixis’ help, any kind of inspiration for his assignment eluded him and Eren was getting desperate. The last week had seen him sitting at his desk until one in the morning with a conversation with Levi open on his computer, an art book fanned out near his elbow and the steady tapping of his pencil on blank paper a metronome of all the time he was wasting with this stupid creative block. He was no closer to coming up with a concept for his final piece than he had been a week ago and the stress of it all was beginning to show.

Sighing, Eren shut off the tap and wiped his face on his sleeve because he hadn’t had the forethought to bring a towel. Gathering together his things he shouldered his way out of the bathroom and headed back, swearing as he struggled with the damn door all over again before he stumbled into his room.

It was just after ten and Eren had until eleven before he had to be in Pixis’ office so he figured he could chance a stop along the way to pick up a muffin or something for breakfast. He snagged a jacket off the back of his desk chair, checked his phone for a reply from Levi – there was none – before stuffing it in his back pocket, swinging his bag over his shoulder and – after a moment of hesitation – hauling Pixis’ books into his arms.

He still had no clue what he was going to say to him when the man undoubtedly asked him where his assignment form was and the roiling tension in his gut at the thought was making him feel slightly ill.

His phone vibrated against his thigh.

**_New Text Message: Levi – 10:03  
_ ** _Stop being a brat and go do your shit already before your late_

Just looking at the screen made the tension in his stomach ease bafflingly quick. It was weird how Levi’s words – his swearing at Eren and his crass toilet humour – could made a situation that had only a second ago seemed nerve-racking that much easier to bare.

Shifting the art books to one arm Eren typed out a reply before shoving his phone back in his pocket and heading out the door.

_yeah thanks levi_

_._

Eren wound up skipping breakfast after all.

By the time he bypassed the favourite campus coffees shop he found his appetite pretty much stifled by the pressure of knowing he was going to be facing Pixis again and having to not only apologize, but explain why he’d resorted to avoiding him again.

Apologies had never come easily to Eren who had an alarming disinclination to admit when he was in the wrong. It’d been inconvenient enough when he was in high school and gotten him into serious trouble more times than he cared to count, but at university he knew shirking off responsibility like that would probably be the equivalent of murdering small children and throwing their orphaned fluffy-animal-of-choice into a lake.

He’d have no choice but to admit that he still hadn’t filled out the goddamn form and hope Pixis was feeling particularly merciful.

Pixis’ office was a large room on the third floor of the Arts building. Eren usually took the elevator – he worked out, he was allowed to be lazy with things now and again – but the prospect of maybe putting off the inevitable for another five minutes was so appealing he took the stairs instead. By the time he reached the right floor he was disgusted by how out of breath he was – books or no books – and resolved to up his workout routine.

And maybe cut down on the amount of pizza he ate, although he wasn’t making himself any promises.

Pixis’ door was at the end of the hall and the trek towards it seemed almost interminable in length. Eren knew it was just nerves, but Jesus _fuck_ it felt like he was a journeying to Mordor to destroy the one ring to rule them all.

Taking in a deep breath Eren fixed his expression to something slightly less guilty and rapped on the door.

“Come in, Eren,” Pixis called cheerfully and Eren sidled his way into the room, shutting the door behind him with the hand that wasn’t balancing half a dozen textbooks in the crook of his arm.

Pixis was standing behind his desk, fussing around with papers and folders strewn across it in such a disorganized heap that they’d migrated to being sprawled all across the computer keyboard. Eren would have been alarmed if this kind of disarray wasn’t normal. Pixis wasn’t messy per se, but he had his own unique system and while Eren could never find anything for the life of him, Pixis always seemed to know exactly where to look.

“Morning, sir,” Eren greeted as he looked for an empty spot in the room to set down the hefty books in his arms and spying an empty seat near the door and shuffling over to put them down. “Sorry if I’m a little late.”

“Not at all,” Pixis hummed as he shifted a stack of papers from one side of the desk to the other, whistling what sounded like Beyoncé under his breath as he did so. “Right on time, I’d say.”

Eren glanced at the clock hanging crookedly behind Pixis’ desk which read that he was, in fact, ten minutes late but he was sure Pixis was aware – the man wasn’t anyway near as scatterbrained as he appeared.

“Are you looking for something?” He asked after a moment of watching Pixis dig around in his desk. “Do you want help?”

“No, no, don’t worry. Just give me a minute…”

Eren remained standing awkwardly by the door with his shoulders braced for the moment Pixis decided to ask for his assignment slip but the man seemed completely consumed in opening and closing drawers in a rattle of noise.

Eren managed to keep silent for another minute but eventually the curiosity got him. “What are you looking for?”

“Ah!” Pixis exclaimed, straightening up abruptly enough to make Eren blink in surprise. “Found it.”

‘ _It’_ turned out to be a small art book much like the ones Eren had spent the past week studying.

“Come here, Eren, I’ll tell you what I need done today,” Pixis hummed cheerfully as he gathered up one or two of the stacks on his desk. “I have a class to take so it’ll just be you here, but I have full trust that you’ll carry out your task fine.”

Eren blinked and then frowned because he was pretty certain only last time he’d been here Pixis had mentioned something about him restocking the art rooms –

“What are you lingering there for? Something the matter?”

“No, it’s – I just thought –.” Eren hesitated and cut himself off because Pixis was looking at him and smiling like he honestly hadn’t a clue what Eren was so fussed about which was confusing on many different levels because Pixis must have been fully aware that this wasn’t what Eren had previously been supposed to do today and that his assignment slip was still sitting crumpled and empty in the bottom desk of his room.

“That’s alright then. Come now, I don’t have all day.”

Eren gnawed at his lip but shuffled over anyway, trying to contain his bemusement so it didn’t sit so plainly on his face. When he was near enough to be in arms reach Pixis pushed him down into the desk chair.

“I was recommended this book by a friend recently but I simply don’t have the time to look through it all, so you’re just going to have to do it for me.” Pixis dropped the book on the desk next to a stack of paper. “Go through and take notes about which pieces interest you and their appearance and techniques so I’ll know which ones to bother looking at and which are just rubbish.”

“Sir, I –.”

“Good lad,” Pixis smiled, clapping Eren heavily on the shoulder as he cut him off like he hadn’t even heard. “Must be off now; if I’m not back you know when you’re free to leave.”

With that he returned to whistling like he’d never stopped at all and left the room with a clatter of paper and doorknobs.

Eren stared blankly after him because he really hadn’t a clue what had just happened. Pixis had a reputation around the college as being a bit eccentric but Eren really hadn’t believed it until he’d started working under him.

Curiously, he looked down at the book Pixis had left for him – he was honestly baffled, this didn’t even begin to fall under the scope of his normal duties – and flipped it open.

He blinked in surprise.

The book was a collection of prints of charcoal sketches – Eren’s preferred medium – unlike the books Pixis had previously leant him which were predominantly paints and pastels.

Closing the book he flipped it over to see the spine was perfectly uncreased and, if he looked close enough, he could see where a price tag had just recently been scrapped off the back.

Pixis hadn’t just happened to have this lying around.

Eren cast a glance at the door before pulling his phone from his pocket and trying to tap down on the smile threatening to overwhelm him because Pixis was flat out crazy, he was sure, and Eren had never been gladder in his life to say that his professor was an absolute nutcase.

_pretty sure my art teacher was a tactical genius in another life_

He barely opened the book again when Levi’s reply came through.

**_New Text Message: Levi – 11:15  
_ ** _Shut up and work brat_

.

Eren wound up leaving later than he’d originally anticipated. While the book hadn’t spurred to life any new ideas for him, it _had_ been interesting to flick through and stare in awe at the talent. When he was younger Eren had dreamt of being an artist for a living, but – go figure – his father hadn’t approved; something about it being too unstable of an income. The compromise had been graphic design which had enough arts elements to it to satisfy Eren and enough work guarantee to appease his father.

(Eren hadn’t actually mentioned his minor in actual art, but seeing as how he spoke to his father with about as much regularity as Levi’s sleep schedule he figured he might never have to, all going according to plan.)

Stopping for coffee Eren sighed in disappointment when he found Jean behind the counter instead of Marco.

“Sorry, Eren. Looks like it’s just you and me today,” Jean smirked, dusting his hands on his apron. “Marco’s out sick so I’m covering his shift.”

Eren grimaced as he eased his satchel bag over his head and off his shoulder. “You didn’t poison him or something, did you? Seems like something you’d do.”

“Oi,” Jean snapped. “I have the power to spit in your drink, you know.”

“Save the spit swapping for your boyfriend, Kirschtein,” Eren sniped back just as his felt his phone go off in his pocket.

**_New Text Message – Levi: 4:17  
_ ** _You will not believe the shitty ass day I just had_

Doing the math in his head Eren guessed it must be just past seven where Levi was – meaning he’d probably just gotten off work.

“You actually going to order something?” Jean grunted, frowning when Eren waved him off to type out a reply.

_that bad?_

**_New Text Message: Levi – 4:18  
_ ** _Yes that fucking bad_

_do you want to talk about it?_

“Jesus Christ, Eren. _Stop it._ ”

Eren looked up, baffled. “Stop what? Texting?”

“Smiling,” Jean corrected, looking honestly disturbed. “It’s freaking me out. Who the fuck are you talking to? You look like you’ve discovered lolcats all over again.”

“Oh, shut up and get me my coffee, horse face,” Eren snapped trying very hard to ignore the way his cheeks suddenly felt too hot before adding on a quick; “And it’s none of your business.”

Jean looked at him dubiously but shuffled off to make him his drink. Eren stuffed his phone back in his pocket and fished around for change.

Was he really that obvious? It wasn’t – it wasn’t like he was really _doing_ anything to get all embarrassed about, but Eren wasn’t ready to tell anybody about Levi yet – especially not Jean fucking Kirschtein. Something about Levi felt _private._ He wasn’t exactly sure why, but Eren was kind of new to this whole friendship gig – if that’s what they were – because he’d had the same friendship group since elementary school. He didn’t want to get all emotionally invested and clingy and scare off someone who was probably the singular most unique person Eren had ever met after only a week of talking.

Dumping a handful of coins on the counter – all the small change, just to piss Jean off – Eren shuffled over to the nearest table. It wasn’t busy and Jean was getting fat anyway; it’d do him good to have to walk the handful of steps to deliver his drink.

He was just sliding into his seat when his phone went off against his thigh again and Eren scrambled for it so fast he nearly dropped it.

**_New Text Message – Levi: 4:22  
_ ** _Not really_

**_New text Message: Levi: 4:22  
_ ** _Not over text at least_

Eren’s heart came to a shuddering halt as he stared blankly at the screen, unsure whether he was reading the inference right.

He and Levi hadn’t actually _talked-talked_ yet – as in the kind with voice boxes and the complete absence of a backspace button. That wasn’t to say Eren didn’t _want_ to – he really, really wanted to – but he’d been too nervous to ask and couldn’t figure out if it’d be appropriate. They’d been messaging each other every day for a week, but Eren knew better than anybody that exchanging some texts and emails was a vastly different thing from picking up a phone and _calling_ somebody.

Holy flying fuck, did Levi _actually_ want to talk or was Eren just misreading things?

All of a sudden Eren found his hand empty and his eyes staring blankly at his fingers.

“Who the fuck is Levi?” Jean asked from where he was standing next to Eren’s table with his phone in one hand and his coffee in the other.

“I _said_ none of your damn business Kirschtein, now give me back my phone,” Eren hissed making a grab for it and resisting the urge to ram his elbow into Jean’s gut because it seemed like a pretty piss poor thing to do when Jean was holding a steaming cup of coffee that’d probably wind up in his lap. “God, do you have no concept of privacy?”

Jean snorted and dropped the phone back to the table before setting Eren’s coffee down. “What’s got your panties in a twist? You don’t bother to put pants on when you open your damn door but you draw the line at your _phone_?”

“Oh, shut up and do your job,” Eren huffed, snatching his phone away before Jean decided to go through his message logs or something. “And I only answer the door without pants on when you wake me up like the asshat you are.”

“Eren, your sleep schedule is so weird I could be waking you up at six in the evening.”

“That’s your fault not mine for trying to inflict your presence on me. If I want to go pants-less is my own room, I will. Now piss off, I’m busy and your face is putting me off my coffee.”

Jean gave him a scathing look but someone rattled open the shop door and he had no choice but to trot back over to the counter.

Eren looked back down at his phone, Levi’s message still open and equally as impossible to read as it had been a minute ago. Eren swiped a tongue over his lips nervously and tried to ignore the way his nerves were alight like hotwires as he finally worked up the courage to reply.

_you can call if you want, im not busy_

His thumb hovered over the send button for a second and Eren bit down hard on his lip and _pressed,_ hoping to god he hadn’t just inadvertently fucked shit up and –

The ring of his phone was frighteningly loud in the café and the actual sight of Levi’s name flashing on his screen beneath the proclamation of _‘Incoming Caller’_ nearly gave Eren an aneurism.

Finally, he managed to mash the answer button.

“Hello,” he breathed.

“ _Took you fucking long enough.”_

Eren had tried to imagine Levi’s voice plenty of times since they’d started talking. The times when he’d come so close to asking Levi if he wanted to actually call, typed out the offer even, only to chicken out at the last moment. Somehow, he’d still never gotten it right.

In his head he’d been imagining the smooth syrup of coffee, deep and warm and slow, a little gravel-and-grit from too little sleep and too much caffeine. The reality was much different. His voice was sharp and clear, precise with not an ounce of sleepless drag. It wasn’t smooth and slow, but even and deep and Eren wasn’t sure if the undercurrent of a growl he could detect was how Levi sounded all the time, or just right now. He could imagine it though; the burr beneath the layer of his every word.

“ _Oi, say something. Did you go to take a shit?”_

“What? No! I’m still here. What is it with you and shit jokes?” Eren wasn’t flushing. He absolutely wasn’t flushing.

“ _Who said I was fucking joking? Don’t answer that, it wasn’t an actual question. Anyway, are you going to ask about my day or not?”_

Eren didn’t understand how Levi could sound so calm and bored while Eren’s own heart rabbited about his chest like a wayward jackhammer, his mouth dry and his fingers a bit shaky where they pushed his phone against his ear.

He felt nervous as hell. Like he was trying to ask the head cheerleader to prom.

The comparison was so ridiculous that it actually managed to calm him and still the jitters that frazzled along his nerves.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, taking in a deep breath as he smiled. “How was your day, Levi?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing from predominately one POV without the freedom of switching in between whenever I want is kind of difficult for me and I’m still getting used to that, so I’m sorry if there was any awkwardness. 
> 
> A quick note about Eren’s art program: Eren’s university requires their students to fill out a form declaring their intent for each of their art pieces before it’s submitted. Usually it’s supposed to be in at least two months before the project itself, which is why Eren’s cutting it really close. 
> 
> Thanks to anybody and everybody who commented, bookmarked, kudos-ed or even just read this story!


	5. The webcam proposal

“You can’t draw? I thought you were an artist. I thought that was the _point_ of being an artist.”

“ _Jesus Chris Levi, you’ve never had a creative block_?”

Levi shifted slightly from where he was curled up on his couch, laptop propped up on his knees and phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear. “Not when it’s something I have to get done, no. In case you’ve forgotten if I get a ‘creative block’ on my work I’d be explaining to my boss why the company has collapsed because I didn’t think it fit to attend to my duties.”

“ _Okay, now you’re just being – Hold on, there’s someone at the door. I’ll be right back._ ”

“Whatever,” Levi muttered as he heard the soft click of Eren’s phone being placed down on the desk.

Strictly speaking, he probably should have ended the call about twenty minutes ago anyway. He’d blocked in half an hour for talking to the brat when he’d arrived home at seven and then figured he’d spend the rest of the night catching up on reports which he hadn’t been able to finish at work. The fact that he was still talking to Eren was only justifiable because he’d dragged out his computer and a stack of papers as soon as he’d hit the thirty minute mark and stated multitasking.

“ _Hey, you there_?”

Levi grunted into the receiver as he scanned a budget report.

“ _Sorry, I’ve got to go now. Talk later, yeah_?”

Levi smirked around the pen in his mouth. “If I feel like you’re worth the effort. Now fuck off, I’m working.”

Eren laughed – a long low line of a sound that made something twitch painfully in Levi’s stomach – before wishing him farewell and hanging-up.

Two weeks now. They’d been exchanging conversation and messages and phone calls for two weeks. Practically every day, even.

Levi winced as he mistyped, plucking the pen out from his mouth and gritting his teeth as he scanned over the document for any other stupid ass mistakes he could have possibly made. He found several.

This was ridiculous. Levi was the goddamn king of multitasking but he couldn’t hold a conversation with Eren without sabotaging his own damn report? This was getting not only desperately embarrassing but a little out of hand as well.

Sighing, Levi gently lifted the laptop off his lap and placed it on the curved glass coffee table in front of him before easing himself off the sofa and to his feet, groaning at the stiff way his shoulders rolled as he stretched and made his way towards the kitchen, glasses uncomfortably perched on the tip of his nose.

He plucked them off and dropped them on a bench as he bypassed the kettle and went right for the wine fridge.

He’d been working twelve hour days, staying at work around the clock to try and cope with the sheer amount of shit that was involved in something as complicated as a merger. The fact that his department seemed to be staffed by lobotomized pre-schoolers who ate glue in their spare time had not been helping matters.

Selecting the closest bottle of wine without even glancing at label, Levi fished a glass from the rack above the fridge and thudded them both down on the table with probably more force that was strictly necessary. The loud _pop_ of the cork wiggling free beneath his fingers and the faint hiss of escaping air were violent enough sounds to calm the tension shivering down his spine as he poured.

He liked talking to Eren – whether it was exchanging meaningless texts on his way from work or hearing the sleepy slur in his voice when Levi decided to call him at seven o’clock Eren’s time with the excuse of helping him maintain a healthy sleep schedule.

Eren was new. Eren was shiny. Eren was exciting.

Eren was also hot as motherfucking hell and Levi had spent more time scrolling through the brat’s facebook page than was probably illegal in some countries.

He was nineteen. Nineteen and tanned with dark hair and bright eyes and a smile that looked like it came straight from the pages of a Nicholas Sparks’ novel. The first time Levi had seen his photo as he clicked curiously around his timeline he’d thought he might be the victim of a cosmic joke.

Young, attractive and the best fucking conversationalist Levi had met for as long as he could remember. It would have felt a lot like winning the lottery if only Levi hadn’t been a thirty-four year old workaholic with bags under his eyes and skin so deathly pale from being shut up in buildings all the time that he had actually been asked once or twice if he was secretly a vampire.

Levi opened his fridge with the intention of putting the bottle of wine away and wandering back out to the lounge with his glass. He hesitated a moment and – after the barest hint of deliberation – shoved the glass on the top shelf and walked back out of the room with the motherfucking bottle instead, rebelliously leaving his glasses on the bench as he walked past. 

If Erwin could see him behaving like this he’d probably have a heart attack.

Deciding that the reports could wait until work the next morning, Levi went to save his meagre progress. When he went to close down all the open programmes he discovered that Eren’s facebook was still up in a minimized tab, open to a picture of him and his friends on a trip out to the middle of fucking nowhere, one arm slung around the shoulders of a lean Asian girl that Levi thought was probably his sister and the other around the childhood friend – Armin something-a-rather – while the rest of his friends bundled in close.

Eren’s smile was positively blinding and even though the photo looked like it was probably fairly recent, the guilt Levi felt at the way his eyes were drawn to the strip of skin just beneath the hem of his shirt or the way his shorts were riding low on his hips made him feel like the scum of humanity.

Levi slammed the lid of his laptop closed in a childish display of anger and left it sitting on the table, making his way over to his desk with the intention of maybe getting something horribly gory up on Netflix and seeing if the mental anguish of fictional characters might distract him from his maudlin.

No such luck. The second he sat down his phone went off and Erwin’s name flashed on the screen when he finally extracted it from his pocket.

“What?” he growled with as much venom as he could.

“Levi, sorry. I know you’re probably tired and exhausted, but I really need your help.”

He sounded genuine at the very least – honestly apologetically – and Levi knew him sufficiently well to know when Erwin was and wasn’t playing him for sympathy.

Levi glanced longingly at the icy cold wine bottle by his elbow and the Netflix open on his screen before closing his eyes in exasperation and turning his chair away.

“What’s happened?”

.

What happened turned out to be one of the brain dead new-hires misfiling one fucking report that hadn’t been saved to the database as well and turning out to be one of the most important sheet of paper in the whole goddamn office.

Any other day Levi might have felt sympathetic for them. A twinge of baseless pity because the filing system here was a fucking disaster on good days and an incomprehensible labyrinth complete with David-fucking-Bowie as the goblin king on a bad one.

Today was not any other day. Today was Thursday and Levi hadn’t slept since Tuesday and it was nearly midnight and the coffee machine was broken and it was just he, Hanji and Erwin methodically going through three years of backlog and Levi just wanted to murder the person responsible with his bare hands in a way that would put Freddie Kruger to shame.

“That’s 2012 finished,” Hanji called as she stuffed one last file back in the cabinet. She’d been cheerful enough when Levi had arrived, but even her flamboyance couldn’t stand up against the weight of an entire fucking year of reports.

Levi grunted from where he was sitting at a desk, flicking through folders and stacking them neatly and orderly to the side. “When we’re fucking done with this, we’re having a talk about overhauling the filing system.”

Erwin glanced up from the cabinet he was shifting through. “It’s on the to-do list, Levi, but nobody’s interested in taking the job. There hasn’t been time for it lately.”

“There hasn’t been time for wiping my ass when I take a shit lately,” Levi shot back as he irately slammed another manila folder closed and threw it disgustedly to the side. “Doesn’t stop me from doing it. _Make time_.”

Erwin looked annoyingly amused. “Are you volunteering then?”

Levi blanched. “Oh, fuck no. You’re not shoving that shit on me. I’ve got enough to deal with.”

“You are the one that knows the system the best,” Erwin pondered and Levi scowled at him fiercely because _yes_ he was the one who knew the current system the best – witness his being dragged back to the office to sort through the fucking thing – and he knew he could make a new system that would give government pen-pushers a wet dream, but if he added one more thing to his workload he wasn’t sure anybody would be emerging from the office unscathed.

“Levi, do you know where that report from May went?” Hanji asked, completely oblivious to the way he was staring down Erwin. “I can’t find it.”

“Just print another one off. There should be a copy on my laptop,” he grunted, tearing his gaze away to gesture at his bag before returning his attention to the files he was sorting through.

It was late, he was tired and he could feel a headache blooming just behind his temple. His glasses were still in his kitchen back home because in his haste to leave the apartment he’d grabbed the case but forgotten his rebellious moment of leaving them lying out. Hours of staring at papers without them were starting to hurt.

Distantly, he heard Hanji unzipping his bag and opening up his laptop, but it wasn’t until she let out a noise of pure joy that he realized what he’d left open on the screen.

“Oh my gosh, Levi. Who’s this cutie? He’s adorable, oh my god. _Look at him_.”

Levi was on his feet in instance, sending his paperwork flying to the ground as he ripped his way across the room to where Hanji was getting to her feet with his laptop held high above her head titled just so, looking like she’d found God after all.

“Hanji,” Levi growled as he tried to step on her toes, refusing to debase himself by reaching for a computer that was way out of his reach. “Stop being a shit and give that back. I didn’t say you could snoop, do your fucking job.”

Haji pivoted out of his reach, dancing across the room to Erwin who was watching the proceedings with mild interest and smiling so hard it looked like she might just split her mouth in two. She, of course, completely ignored him. “But look at him! _Look at him_! How old is? Ooh, nineteen? You’ve been cradle-snatching, haven’t you? Says he lives in California! How did you two meet? You better be hitting that because he’s so cute I could eat him!”

Levi felt the anger rising up like an over-boiling pot on a too hot stove. “Put it the fuck down, Hanji,” he said, as low and deadly as he could manage and darted across the room to snatch the computer from her surprised hands before she could show Erwin.

Hanji pouted. “Oh, don’t be such a spoil sport. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m proud that you’re finally extending your social horizon beyond us. Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing such a hot young thing?”

“Because I’m not,” Levi ground and steadfastly ignored the latter half of the comment. “And even if I was, it still wouldn’t be your business.”

Hanji pasted a wounded expression on her face. “Now that’s just rude. Everything you do is our business, isn’t that right, Erwin?”

Erwin looked torn between amusement and pity for Levi as he shook his head. “I’m staying out of this one.”

Hanji recovered quickly, whipping around like lightening to face Levi and making an effort to back him against the desk which would have worked on pretty much everyone else except him. “Details, Levi, _details_. I need to _know_.  When, how, what and why.”

“Still not seeing him,” he gritted, leaning away to try and put some space between them. “In the last four seconds, that hasn’t changed.”

“Pfft, _please_. You don’t even pay that much attention to your own facebook profile. I know for a fact you don’t have a single picture on it. You’re all but cyber stalking the kid. So, okay, I can buy that you’re not involved. The real question is; how desperately do you _want_ to be?”

Hanji was annoyingly astute at the worst of times and Levi was fighting the impulse to just turn around and leave – stranding her and Erwin alone with the mountain of papers and no map to guide them. 

“What I want,” he spat, “is for you to back the fuck up and drop the subject before I drop _you_. It’s midnight and we still have shit to do, in case you’ve forgotten. I get that my personal life is your own personal entertainment, but it does not rank above getting actual work done. Now get out of my face and back to your desk before I kick your teeth in. I’ll print out that fucking document myself.”

He turned away without waiting for a reply and stormed back over to his desk, noticing, as he did so, that sometime in the past few minutes he’d knocked a folder over. Slamming the laptop down on the table, he bent to pick it up.

The document they were looking for was right there.

Getting to his feet Levi placed the document on Erwin’s desk. “Here’s the fucking thing. I’m going home now; you two can pack up this shit.”

Turning around he swept up his belongings and stomped out of the office.

.

Levi fumbled with his phone and it took several tries of button mashing for him to dial properly.

Eren picked up on the fourth ring. “ _H’llo_?”

“Hello to you too, brat.”

There was a surprised silence as Eren doubtlessly checked his caller id. “ _Levi? Is everything okay?_ ”

Levi froze with one hand reaching towards his glass of wine. “What do you mean?”

“ _Dude, I have Toronto time on my phone these days. It’s like four in the morning over there, isn’t it? I thought you were supposed to be trying to get some sleep tonight. Besides, you don’t sound right_.”

Levi tried not to think about what that meant – that Eren had his timezone saved on his phone or the fact that one sentence was enough to clue him in that something was wrong.

“Everything’s fine, stop being such a shit. I’m just having a drink before bed.”

Eren made a concerned noise at the other end of the phone and Levi heard the distant creak of him sitting up straighter in his chair. “ _Are you drunk right now?_ ” He asked incredulously. “ _Because that’s what drinking at four am usually symbolises_.”

Levi frowned and glanced over at the small collection of empty wine bottles gathered morosely on his coffee table. “What the fuck does it matter?”

“ _No, yeah. You’re drunk,_ ” Eren sighed. “ _That is so weird. I wouldn’t have pictured you for the type of person to do that. Then again, seeing as how I have no clue what you look like, I can’t really picture you at all_.”

Eren’s tone wasn’t accusing, mildly amused maybe, but not in a way like he was laughing at Levi. Levi still felt like a piece of shit anyway because he couldn’t think up a good way to tell Eren ‘ _I’m a thirty-four year old workaholic who despises people. I can’t stand mess or disorder to such an extent that I’ve lost friendships over it. I’ve not left my apartment for pleasure in over a year and small children tend to be afraid of my face_.’

He figured it was about time he admitted that much; because if he planned on having Eren stick around it was probably better he knew what he was dealing with sooner rather than later.

He opened his mouth to say all of this – say something that summarized it all – but what came out was: “Do you want to webcam with me?”

Eren went silent on the other end and Levi internally panicked because _fuck_ , he hadn’t meant to just come out and ask that, and he was sure he had a plan of some sort, and he probably shouldn’t have opened that third bottle of wine because it was getting significantly harder to think these things through and… He took in a deep breath.

“Never mind, that was fucking stupid of me. I just –.”

“ _Oh, shit. No Levi, sorry, I just – you surprised me is all. You didn’t seem interested in webcamming before, you never mentioned it, so I just – I assumed… anyway, that’s not it. I just… I_ want _to say yes, but I don’t think I should_.”

Levi blinked. “What? Why the fuck not?

“ _Because I make it a point never to let drunk people make decisions like that. How about you ask me again in the morning, yeah? If you still want to webcam we can do it then.”_

It wasn’t… it wasn’t a _no_. Under the circumstances, that was probably the best he could hope for.

“Alright. Yeah. Okay.”

Eren made a sound that was almost laughter and Levi shivered a little because Eren seriously had no clue how he sounded when he laughed. “ _Anyway, you’ve got work tomorrow, right? You should go to bed before you give yourself a hangover.”_

Levi snorted. “I don’t get hangovers.”

“ _I would have believed that about ten minutes ago, but ten minutes ago I would have believed you don’t get drunk either._ ”

He was right, of course. Levi should go to bed. He had work in three hours and he still had to apologize to Hanji for acting like a small child and Levi grudgingly admitted that if he was as sober as he was pretending to be, he probably wouldn’t have even called Eren in the first place.

“You should be in bed too, you little shit, so don’t get off on telling me what to do.” Before Eren could protest – he fucking would, he knew it – Levi added: “I’m hanging up now but I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Try not to piss yourself in anticipation.”

Eren snorted. “ _I’ll try and contain myself, but I make no promises. Night, Levi_.”

Levi closed his eyes and hung up without saying anything else.

He let himself believe it was just the alcohol that made it that much easier to breathe.


	6. The luncheon intervention

“If you two need to be alone, I can give you some privacy.”

Eren flushed and dropped his phone guilty back down to the table. “Sorry, sorry. I’m just waiting for a message from someone.”

Armin watched him with curious, interested eyes as he tapped his fork absently against the side of his plate. Eren knew he’d been kind of an asshole checking his phone every ten minutes or so, but Armin didn’t look mad about it, just mildly amused and a little intrigued. It was always an alarming combination when it came to Armin, because it generally meant Eren would be spilling all his secrets in a matter of minutes.

“From who, exactly? I’m right here and I know for a fact you don’t get that excited for Mikasa’s texts.”

Eren fixated all his attention on fumbling for his cutlery even though his ears felt dangerously hot. “Nobody. It’s nothing important.”

Armin didn’t look like he believed him for one second but dutifully didn’t push. This was why Armin was his favourite – Mikasa would have latched onto the subject with both hands until it became a fight and one or both of them had stormed out in a huff.

Eren hadn’t heard from Levi since the phone call at about one – four Levi’s time – and he wouldn’t admit he was panicking, not just yet, but he _was_ worried.

He’d never heard him sound quite so … out of control before. To anybody not used to the subtle nuances of Levi’s speech, it probably wouldn’t have been noticeable, but Eren had been trading conversation back and forth for half a month and could have picked up the slightest shift with ease.

Levi had been over pronouncing his words, tongue curling carefully around anything that was easy to slur like he was compensating for a hitch in his brain-to-mouth speech filters. Armin did the exact same thing when he was drinking and somehow it didn’t surprise Eren that Levi had the same annoying habit.

Then there was the webcam thing. Eren had tried not to get his hopes up the last few weeks, but Levi had pretty much handed them over to NASA and aerial projected them last night. Eren had been biding his time, waiting for a chance to try and smoothly fit the idea into discussion without coming off as over eager, but Levi had beaten him to the punch and made all of Eren’s worrying about it seem stupid.

It would have been perfect if not for the little flaw that Eren didn’t want their first time to be when Levi was drunk.

(and okay _wow_ ; Eren really needed to check things in at his brain as he thought them, because the use of words like ‘first time’ in the same sentence with Levi made his cheeks flush in embarrassment and his spoon stutter against the side of his bowl from nerves.)

“Seriously, Eren, if there’s something up you can tell me. You know that right?” Armin sighed. “You’ve been acting weirder than usual this whole lunch.”

Eren floundered a little and fixed his eyes on his bowl of pasta. “There’s… it’s …”

He was probably getting to the point where he should tell his friends about Levi before it became a big deal. Two weeks was long enough to say someone had become part of your life, any less and it was too soon and anymore and it became a ‘thing’. Eren didn’t want them to think he was ashamed of Levi but the idea of coming out and saying it – “ _Oh, so there’s this guy, that asshole from Omegle?”_ – was kind of terrifying in the way picking fights with people twice his size just _wasn’t_.

He glanced up at Armin who was still looking at him with a semi-concerned semi-amused face like he found Eren’s suffering amusing but worrying at the same time. It was a look only Armin was really capable of pulling off and Eren couldn’t count the amount of times people had mistaken Armin for being a deal more naive and innocent than the fucker actually was.

Eren took in a deep breath and set aside his spoon. “Okay, so I need you not to overreact.”

Armin raised an eyebrow. “Am I somebody you know to frequently ‘overreact’? That’s usually more Mikasa.”

“And that’s another thing,” Eren added hurriedly. “Don’t tell Mikasa.”

“Eren, I could say yes but you know I’d be lying. I can’t make any promises until I know what it is. Because frankly? Mikasa terrifies me more than you ever will. If it’s something important she might actually slaughter me for keeping it from her.”

Eren scrubbed a hand over his face and made a small noise of dread at the back of his throat and tried not to begrudge Armin for being so fucking reasonable. “It’s not a big thing. It’s not important. It’s just… It’s a thing.”

“A thing,” Armin repeated, sounding completely unconvinced. There was the slight chink of cutlery as he set aside his own knife and fork. “Eren, you’re not in trouble, are you?”

He spluttered noisily. “What? No! Jesus Christ, not everything I have to tell you about is because I’m in trouble!”

“Well, you don’t exactly have the best track record,” Armin said apologetically. “And if you’ve broken Jean’s nose again I’d prefer to hear it from you and not because he called me at one in the morning asking if I would be kind enough to suffocate you in your sleep.”

Momentarily distracted, Eren scoffed: “He did not.”

“He did,” Armin assured him, morbidly serious. “Said if I did it he’d owe me a mafia-style favour.”

Eren was about to ask what exactly a ‘mafia-style’ favour constituted but forced himself to take in several deep breathes and _focus_. “It’s not about Jean’s nose. It’s, um, I’ve met this guy and –.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Armin cut in with a look of deep understanding. “I understand.”

“You do?” Eren asked, slightly flustered, before he realized what Armin was implying. “Wait, _wait_. No, not like ‘met a guy’ I mean – oh my god, _shit_ – _met a guy_. Literally, a person who happens to be in possession of a penis that I’ve met.” His face was feeling heated and he felt desperately flushed due to sheer mortification.

Armin looked vaguely sceptical but also worryingly pitying. “Right,” he said in that way people got when they didn’t actually believe you but were willing to humour you. “Right, so you’ve met a guy.”

Eren hadn’t felt this thrown since the first time someone mistook Mikasa for his girlfriend – and hadn’t that been a mildly traumatizing experience. He wasn’t normally the best with words, but they didn’t usually stick in his throat like this.

He picked up his spoon just for something to focus on and pushed his meal idly around the plate, trying for casual. “Um, I don’t know if you remember but a few weeks ago I was late coming out of my class and we went for coffee and I bitched about a guy I talked to on Omegle?”

Armin was eyeing him with nothing short of outright concern. “I remember.”

“Well, the thing is, uh, we actually connected for a second time.”

Armin blinked in surprise. “On Omegle? A second time? Are you sure it was him?”

 _Nobody else makes shit jokes quite like him_ , Eren though with wryly. “Pretty damn sure,” he said.

“Oh my god, Eren. Do you even understand the chances of that happening? It’d be practically impossible!”

“Um, yeah. We know. That’s why we kind of actually talked the second time. We wound up exchanging facebooks.”

Armin was definitely staring at him now, all pretence of appearing politely divided between conversation and his meal abandoned. “You exchanged facebooks?”

“And then emails,” Eren confirmed, shifting uncomfortably beneath the scrutiny. “And, uh, IM addresses. And number. Things kind of… escalated?”

Armin made a noise that might have been disbelief but Eren was too busy trying to appear consumed in the chalky mouthful of food he was eating to be sure of.

“Things escalated? And you exchanged numbers? With a guy you just met on the internet?”

“To be fair,” he said around a mouthful of ravioli and tomato that felt stuck in his throat, “We’d been talking a week at that point.”

“Eren,” Armin looked torn between disbelief and resignation. “I know for a fact we had the stranger danger talk.”

He finally managed to swallow his mouthful without choking and pointed accusingly at Armin with his spoon. “See? This is why I asked you not to overreact.”

Armin held his hands up in protest. “I’m not! I’m just… how do you know this guy is who he says he is? Actually, let’s back up a step. Who _is_ this guy?”

Finally. A topic Eren could actually talk about without feeling like he was constantly on the edge of a seat poised to tip at any moment. “His name’s Levi,” he said shortly. “He lives in Toronto, Canada, and works at a big-shot business. He’s a workaholic, doesn’t sleep enough and has a really weird sense of humour.”

Armin didn’t look anymore reassured than before. “How old is he? Older than you, I bet. What does he look like? Are you sure he’s not just a pervert?”

“He’s not a pervert!” Eren snapped, almost taken aback himself by his passion. Armin certainly looked startled. “I know you still think I’m a kid and unable to make my own choices, but I know what I’m doing, okay? He’s…” Eren scruffed a hand through his hair agitatedly, trying to look for the words to describe Levi. “He… he likes to pretend like he doesn’t care even though I know he secretly does. He texts me awake when I have morning classes and calls me before noon on the weekends so I don’t spend all day sleeping. He doesn’t eat proper meals and he never gets enough sleep and he spends so much time at work that I sometimes worry he’s forgotten there’s a world outside of it and …” Eren sucked in a deep breath and tried to ignore the way his heart with thudding out too much blood too fast. “He’s a good person, okay? I just know it.”

Armin was staring at him with large eyes. “Wow,” he said. “Eren, you’ve got it bad.”

Eren reddened and looked back towards the table. “It’s not like that,” he muttered past the heat in his cheeks.

“No, Eren,” Armin’s voice was gentle and he reached across to give one of Eren’s hands a comforting squeeze. “I think it’s exactly like that. And I’m not saying I approve –” Eren made a sound of protest but Armin just kept right on talking over him “– and I still don’t trust him, but you were right. I’m sorry for babying you. You can make your own choices and I shouldn’t get upset with you for doing that. I just… You’re my best friend since childhood and I worry about you all the time. I may not trust this guy, but I trust you. And if you mess up I’ll be here to knock some sense back into you, okay?” He gave Eren a smile, and Eren realized he was dangerously close to doing something pathetic like _crying_ and it wasn’t even about Levi anymore, because Eren hadn’t even realized just how much he’d missed Armin until just now.

“Yeah,” he coughed and managed to clamp down on his tears because he didn’t think he’d ever live it down if he cried right now. “Thanks, Armin. I love you like a bro, you know?”

Armin laughed and pulled back. “I know. Now; you have weeks’ worth of details to catch me up on and I expect you to do so in full.”

.

Eren returned back to his room shortly after three. After the initial awkwardness that had come with admitting Levi’s existence and the circumstances behind their meeting to someone else, Eren had almost been glad to have someone to talk to about it. Armin had agreed, at least, that he’d made the right call with the webcam, but despite his attempts he hadn’t been able to explain why Levi hadn’t contacted him since the previous night.

( _“You said he was a busy guy. Maybe he just hasn’t had time?”_

_“For one simple text message? Just a ‘hey, I’m alive, we’ll talk about last night later’? He couldn’t even send that?”_

_“I don’t know what you want me to say, Eren. Maybe he’s just embarrassed? Drunk calling someone is usually pretty humiliating in the morning.”_

_“No, Levi doesn’t do embarrassment like a normal person.”_

_“Maybe he doesn’t remember then? Or maybe he just doesn’t want to talk to you?”_

_“I don’t know if you think you’re helping, but you’re really kind of not.”_ )

Eren checked his phone. There were no new messages or missed calls – not that he expected there to be – but the world clock told him it’d be just shortly after six in Toronto right about now. Technically, Levi would be off work even if he hadn’t dragged himself out of the building yet.

He thumbed back over to the phone function, staring uselessly at Levi’s contact.

It felt strangely reminiscent of the first time they’d called each other; with Eren working himself into fits over maybes and maybe-nots.

Sucking in a deep breath, he steeled himself and hit call.

Listening to the ringing on the other end was probably one of the more nerve-racking moments of Eren’s life. It rang twice, four times, six times – Eren was about resigned to it ringing out at that point – before it clicked and Levi’s voice rasped out an exhausted: “ _Hello?”_

Whatever Eren had been going to say fizzled out of life from the journey between his brain and his mouth. Instead of a suave as fuck opening sentence he blurted: “Wow, you sound like _shit_.”

“ _Eren?_ ”

Levi sounded completely out of it and Eren felt himself sitting upright in concern. “Yes, _Eren_. What’s wrong? You sound like you just met the front end of a truck.”

Levi chuckled but it was dry and painful. “ _Only if it were a semi with its personal ensemble. Sorry, I meant to call you earlier but I’ve been asleep most of the day. Erwin gave me the day off this morning before I could even get in touch. Apparently, he would have felt guilty making me come in today after dragging me out until midnight._ ”

“That’s okay,” Eren said honestly, because whatever insecurities and anger he’d had flew out the window the moment he’d heard Levi’s voice. “Seriously though, what’s wrong? Unless your hangovers are usually accompanied by Chinese water torture I don’t think it was the alcohol.”

“ _Well, the alcohol didn’t_ help _. My own fucking fault. Should have seen it coming. Migraine, actually._ ”

“You get migraines?” Eren asked, mildly alarmed. He’d never had one himself, but his mother used to suffer from them back when he was a child. He could still remember the way they’d leave her exhausted and bedbound long after the actual pain had past.

“ _Not often, but enough,_ ” Levi muttered. “ _I forgot my glasses last night when I went back to the office so that’s probably what triggered it. I’m not normally that goddamn careless. Still, it could have been worse._ ”

If this was what Levi sounded like after a good run in with a migraine, Eren wasn’t even sure he wanted to know what ‘worse’ entailed.

“Are you alright? Do you need somebody to come over?”

“ _What are you going to do? Hop on the next flight to Canada?_ ” Levi asked, sounding both tired and amused. “ _Save the shitty concern for somebody who needs it, brat. I’m doing just fine. Hanji stopped by earlier to inflict her presence upon me anyway, although her ceaseless nattering just made it worse_.”

Logically, Eren knew that Levi had friends outside of him even though he never really talked about it. It was usually Eren rattling on about Mikasa and Armin and all the others whom he didn’t get to see as much because some of them had gone to different colleges. The name ‘Hanji’ rang a bell though, and Eren had spent enough time scrolling wistfully through Levi’s empty facebook to match it to a ‘Zoe Hanji’ that spammed his timeline with an inordinate amount of Farmville requests.

“That’s good. I mean, that you’ve got someone over there to look after you. I mean, because, you know, yeah.”

“ _I’m not a complete recluse, you know_.”

The words were out of Eren’s mouth before he could really stop to think on it.

“I _wish_ I could hop on the next flight to Canada.”

Levi was silent a moment and Eren’s heart would have made Levi’s own workaholic heart jealous with the amount of overtime it was pulling right now.

“ _Yeah, but you’d have to sleep out in the streets like the shitty brat you are_.”

Eren laughed and the tension drained from him suddenly. It felt like all he’d needed was Levi’s abruptness and his completely lack of tact for everything to fall back into place again. They were okay. Eren hadn’t fucked up, Levi hadn’t fucked up, and they were doing fine.

He could do this.

“Okay, now might not be the best time, what with you feeling like you just participated in a derby without a seatbelt, but do you remember what you asked last night?”

“ _About the webcam, right?”_ Levi’s reply was knife-sharp and Eren was suddenly plagued by the gnawing sense that maybe he’d been the only one working himself up in knots over it after all. “ _You told me to ask you again in the morning_.”

Eren worked to keep his voice steady. “Oh wow, would you look at the time. Morning’s long past, but I’m willing to extend your deadline.”

“ _Don’t get too full of yourself or I might decide I want nothing to do with you after all,_ ” Levi said and Eren might not have a clue what he looked like, but he was sure whatever expression that face was wearing right now would be mocking – a smirk with thin lips titled just so at the corners, eyes narrowed and brows raised in amusement.

Eren’s breath caught and he found himself wishing with an embarrassing amount of fervour that he could just _see_ him.

“You won’t,” he said confidently. “Without me your life would be boring. All you’d do is work, work, work. Maybe try and piss someone off on Omegle _.”_

“ _Worked on you, didn’t it_?” Levi sneered and Eren laughed.

“I thought you had something to ask me,” he teased.

Levi gave a long suffering sigh. “ _Shitty brat, would you do me the honour of webcamming with me so I can see your disgusting face and you can maybe see mine?_ ”

For reasons completely beyond his comprehension, Eren almost blushed. “Well,” he drawled breathlessly as he fumbled desperately for his laptop. “Since you asked so nicely and all, I suppose I can allow you that honour.” His fingers caught under the lid and he hauled it up into his lap from where he was sitting cross legged on the bed. “Okay, I’ll see you in a minute.”

“ _See you in a minute_ ,” Levi replied before ending the call and Eren knew it was just a video chat, that it wasn’t like they were meeting face to face, that they still had an entire national boarder between here and there, but hearing those words sent a shiver of eagerness crawling up his spine.

His laptop connected to the internet and he tabbed over to his instant messaging program just in time to see Levi’s name flicker to life down the bottom of his screen.

He took a deep breath and with one anticipation-shaken finger, he hit call.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, wow. This is the fastest I have ever updated, although it's sad to say I wouldn't go getting to used to it. I'm a horrible, horrible person when it comes to consistency in updating.
> 
> We just past 300 kudos! Thank you so much to everybody1


	7. The webcam actuality

In the few weeks they’d known each other Eren had tried imagining what Levi looked like too many times to count.

Every time he made an especially witty comment and heard Levi’s _I’m-definitely-not-amused_ snort, he’d try and picture those lips in his mind, curling irrepressibly at the corners as he sighed down the phone line – or every time he heard the soft _chink_ of Levi’s glasses as he pretended like he was listening as Eren talked when he knew for a fact he was probably working.

Was he pale? Tan? What colour was his hair? His eyes? Tall, short, fat, skinny… Eren didn’t even know the amount of times he’d let his mind run wild and the combinations that flew quick-scatter through his brain like tumbling dominos.

He’d wanted to _see_ Levi – to know that last unknowable thing about this person he’d been talking to night and day for what felt like an eternity – and bridge that gap that neither of them mentioned but they both felt.

In the few seconds it took the video connection to establish Eren forgot to breathe.

The screen flickered once – twice – and the blocky pixels cleared.

And there was Levi.

All at once Eren’s lungs felt too full and too empty at the same time.

For all his attempts at imagination, Eren had never quite formed a solid expectation. Maybe he was afraid of disappointment – more likely he was ashamed at the idea that Levi _could_ possibly disappoint him at all. He’d thought of dozens of things – dark hair, sleepy eyes, a long line of neck – but these things had never translated into an actual face, only blurs and hazy features like staring at someone through the shelter of shadows.

Somehow though, for all his thoughts, seeing Levi in the flesh took him completely by surprise.

His face was fatless and sharply angled, chin a comforting jut beneath a thin-pressed mouth. His skin was pale – was he eating enough? Getting enough sleep? Was he just naturally sheet-white? – but his eyes were bright and alert; quick-silver in colour. Silky strands of black hair brushed just above his eyebrows.

He had an undercut. Somehow Eren had never considered that.                 

Eren couldn’t see anything but the screen, could barely hear Levi calling his name.

He was mortifyingly frozen and he had no idea what look was on his face but he’d wager it was a combination of star-struck and awe.

“ _Oi, brat. Shit, You gone deaf on me?_ ’

The words were familiar – although the way they matched the movement of Levi’s lips were not – but somehow it was all he needed for reality to reassert and the world righted itself once more.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, and his laptop felt too hot beneath the unsteady grip of his palms. “Holy flying shit, it’s actually _you_.”

Levi blinked – a flutter of eyelashes against his cheek – and scoffed. “ _Of course it’s me. Who the fuck else were you expecting? The tooth fairy? Jesus Christ, I swear you were dropped on your head as a baby, Jaeger._ ”

Eren blushed and fought the urge to run a hand through his hair because he knew – he just _knew_ – it was a mess, probably sticking every which-way again. He wondered vaguely if his shirt was clean and hoped to god that he hadn’t slopped any sauce on it at lunch.

Levi was pale and dark and _gorgeous_ in a way Eren hadn’t dared dream him to be and Eren was just fervently hoping he didn’t have spinach caught in his teeth.

“Sorry,” he muttered, trying to tap down on the way his ears felt too hot. “It’s just … I can’t actually believe I’m finally seeing you, you know? It’s just so _weird_.”

“ _It’s only weird if you make it weird,_ ” Levi sighed. “ _Let’s not make it weird, Eren. Not if you ever want to webcam with me again_.”

Eren’s heart did something funny in his chest at the thought. “No!” He blurted. “I mean, yeah, it’s not weird. Not weird at all. Why would you think it’s weird? Completely not-weird. Oh my god, are you _laughing_ at me?” He was. He definitely was – Eren could see it in the way his shoulders shook and his lips curved upwards behind the hand he had pressed to his mouth. Eren wanted to be annoyed, but watching Levi’s eyes flutter closed and his lips twist into a smile just made the collar of his shirt feel much too tight instead.

“ _I’d say sorry but I’m not. Jesus, you have the best reactions. If I had any idea you got this flustered every time I teased you a little, I would have bitten the bullet and agreed to see your ugly mug a long time ago_ ,” Levi chuckled. “ _I swear you’re an actual cat sometimes_.”

Eren felt like it was meant to be a compliment but he felt vaguely offended. “You’re such an asshole. I have no idea why we’re friends _._ ”

“ _Because nobody who actually lives near you will listen to you moan about art for three hours straight? I swear my phone bill has increased at least four-fold since I met you_.”

“It hasn’t actually, has it?” He asked anxiously, because somehow he’d never really considered the fact that for all the hour-long calls, _someone_ would be paying for them. And that someone was always Levi.

Levi’s mouth twitched and a hand rose from under the desk as he leant his elbow just out of sight, lowering his chin on the spread of palm. “ _Relax. I can afford it. Those of us who are actual grown-ups are used to paying shit like bills_.”

The question was out before Eren could even consider holding it back: “How old are you, anyway?”

Levi winced visibly and Eren wondered if he’d asked something wrong. “ _I’m thirty-four_.”

“Oh,” Eren said. “Thirty-four.”

Levi cleared his throat and glanced somewhere off camera. “ _I know you probably think I’m a fucking grandpa but_ –.”

“What?” Eren blinked. “What? _No_. Oh my god, no, sorry. That wasn’t what I meant by that. Jesus, sorry.” He realized he was probably doing that flustered thing Levi had told him about again and Eren tried to suck in a breath and order his words instead of just letting them pour out like an avalanche. “I just meant that you seriously don’t look it. I thought you were, like, in your early twenties. You must drink a lot of Earl Grey or something.”

The tension in Levi’s shoulders eased slightly and he crooked a slight smile at him that was a deal softer than the smirks he’d seen so far and Eren’s insides just melted like marshmallows over a campfire.

He hoped to dear god the heat he felt in his cheeks was only his imagination.

He needed a distraction or else he was going to blurt something stupid because he honestly couldn’t stop staring at the way Levi’s hair brushed the edges of his eyes which – Eren frowned.

“Where are your glasses?” He asked.

Levi hummed and glanced over his shoulder. “ _In the kitchen still, I suppose_.” Glancing back up he spotted Eren’s expression. “ _Holy fuck, you’re not serious, are you_?”

“If you don’t go and get you glasses I’m going to hang-up on you,” Eren said firmly, folding his arms securely across his chest to drive home the point. “You just had a migraine because of this. You should be more careful.”

Levi snorted. “ _They’re just reading glasses; I can see fine without them_.”

Eren narrowed his eyes and tried hard to mimic the way Mikasa looked at him whenever he came home with fresh bruises and scrapes.

Levi looked a strange mix between amused and annoyed as he ran a hand through his hair. “ _God, you’re such a pain in my ass. Okay, okay; I’ll be right back_.”

There was the distant squeal of his chair as Levi pushed himself up and Eren caught a glimpse of a dark shirt loose on pale skin before he vanished from sight and he was left staring at an empty wall on the opposite end of the room.

Eren took the chance to bolt off of his bed and launch himself across the room to his mirror, ditching his laptop on his desk as he went.

His hair was its usual messy splay and no amount of desperate finger-combing would ease the snarls. He glanced over his shoulder to see his monitor was still empty before giving up on his hair and giving himself a quick once over to see if there was any evidence of the bolognaise he had for lunch.

At least there was no spinach in his teeth.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

“ _Oi, Eren. Did you go to take a leak_?”

Eren yelped and stumbled his way back towards his desk, foot catching on a rug and nearly tripping him as he went.

“Sorry, sorry,” He gasped as he landed heavily in his chair. “I was just, uh…” ‘ _Looking in the mirror to see if I looked like a total slob’_ probably wasn’t the suave answer here. “Um, someone was at the door.”

Levi’s brow arched and Eren would have paid more attention to the sceptical expression if not for the fact every single functioning brain cell he had at his disposal was fixated on the fact that Levi with thin, black frames perched on the tip of his nose robbed Eren of any thought that wasn’t: ‘ _oh my god no that is not fair please stop’_.

“ _You okay over there_?”

“Um,” Eren said intelligibly. “I’m fine.” Levi quirked an eyebrow at him again and Eren tried to get the rapid fan of his pulse under control. God, he’d never had a thing for glasses before but it was just so hard not to _stare_.

“ _Did you short out your brain_?” Levi asked curiously. “ _Seems like something you’d do. Try not to think too hard or use too many brain cells all at once_.”

“Oh, shut up,” Eren laughed. “My brain works fine. I’m not as dumb as you seem to think I am.”

Levi snorted. “ _That’s not the vibe I’ve been getting_.”

Eren could have snarked back like a three year old, but he elected to rise above the occasion – that and the fact that the longer they talked the paler the sheen of Levi’s already ghost-white skin seemed to get. “Anyway, you look like shit. I should probably let you go.”

“ _Wow, so nice to finally see your face too, you ungrateful shit. Did I say I wanted to go? Don’t go making decisions for me._ ”

“I’m not saying I want to go either,” Eren admitted. “I’m just saying you still look like you could use some rest and I know for a fact that I’m not the most soothing person to be around when you’re in pain.”

“ _Fact, hey_?” Levi repeated with a smirk that Eren studiously ignored. “ _And who told you that_?”

“Armin, actually,” he confessed. “One time in high school Armin got really wasted – and I mean like, completely and utterly plastered – so of course he had to suffer through a pretty horrible hangover the next morning.”

“ _Oh, I’m liking this story already_ ,” Levi purred. “ _Go on_.”

“And because Armin’s an only child and his grandfather works all the time, he had nobody to take of him. And I mean, I’ve never had a hangover so I don’t know for sure, but I guess that’d really suck –.”

“ _You’ve never had a hangover_?” Levi interrupted incredulously.

Eren shrugged self-consciously. “I don’t get drunk very easily to begin with, so hangovers have never really been something I had to deal with.”

Levi stared at him. “ _You’re not fucking human, I swear_.”

“Did you want the story or not?” Eren asked impatiently.

Levi waved a hand breezily, thin fingers wafting before the camera. “ _Sorry, continue_.”

Eren glared at him. “Okay, like I was saying. Armin was in agony so I thought I’d come over and look after him like a good friend.”

“ _Of course_ ,” Levi agreed.

“But the thing is, I’d barely been there an hour when Armin just about begged me in tears to go home. He said he was suffering enough as it was without my attempts to ‘help’ making it worse.” Eren smiled fondly. “Can’t entirely blame him, though. It’s usually him and Mikasa babying _me_ so I guess I’m not really good at looking after someone else.”

“ _It couldn’t have been that bad_.”

“Oh, it was that bad,” Eren assured him. “You have no idea. Like, looking back I’m amazed Armin didn’t knife me in the back and leave my body for the rats like any other rational best friend would have. He’s a great guy like that.”

“ _Maybe he just didn’t have a sharp enough knife_ ,” Levi offered. “ _If you were ever that annoying to me I’d murder you without a second thought_.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Eren laughed. “But seriously, I’m going to go so you can get some rest. Send me a text when you’re feeling better and we’ll have proper webcam without you looking like you’ll keel over if I speak too loudly.”

“ _You always speak too loudly_ ,” Levi sighed. “ _But if you’re going to be such a stubborn fucktard about the whole thing I suppose I could go get a shower and lie down for a while_.”

“I do not,” Eren griped. “You just have ears like a fucking animal. If anybody is a cat here it’s you.”

“ _Goodbye Eren_ ,” Levi said pointedly.

“Yeah, sleep well,” he said back and then the screen went blank.

Eren leant heavily back in his chair, fingers tight against the edge of the desk.

He’d just survived his first webcam session with Levi and on a scale of one-to-ten of how hard his heart was thundering in his chest, he was only just pulling a nine.

His phone sounded loudly to his left.

_**Received New Text Message: Armin – 4:13  
** _ _so? did he get back to you?_

It took a moment of shaky typing to get out a coherent reply _  
_ _armin u have to help me_

_**Received New Text Message: Armin – 4:13  
** _ _why? is everything ok? whats wrong?_

Eren's responses were rapid-fire:

_he’s really fucking hot ok_

_like u have no idea_

_sweet jesus armin i thought i was going to swoon or something_

No sooner had he sent the last message than his phone went off in his hand again, way too quick to have been Armin’s response.

_**Received New Text Message: Levi – 4:14  
** _ _It was tolerable seeing your face. We should probably try that again._

Eren groaned and thudded his head against the desk like it might knock whatever wires were loose back into place. His phone vibrated again – Armin’s response – but he didn’t even look at it as he typed out one last desperate plea.

_armin i think im totally boned_

His response was too quick to be anything but completely premeditated.

_**Received New Text Message: Armin – 4:15  
** _ _you wish you were totally boned you mean_

_youre a horrible best friend and im trading you in for a replacement_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a few formatting issues on AO3 but I'm pretty sure I got them all sorted now, so it should read fine.
> 
> (a lot of you were really disappointed over the cliff-hanger ending, so I hope this makes up for it? I felt like I owed you guys a brilliant scene for their first webcam after that so I tried my gosh darn hardest believe you me <3)
> 
> There is now art for this chapter thanks to shioaart on tumblr who drew [this](http://shioaart.tumblr.com/post/83138640392/a-levi-doodle-inspired-by-yuu-chis-fanfic-you) frankly too adorable for words picture of Levi during their webcam chat!


	8. The thing with the pizza and icecream

Eren awoke with a start to the sound of a small explosion going off in his room – tumbling out of bed in a near army roll and banging his knees hard enough on the ground for a yelp of pain to escape when his foot got caught up in his sheets.

The sound came again – this time with Armin’s muffled voice calling his name – and Eren realized it was the knocking of knuckles against wood and he could probably get off the ground now.

“Eren, come on, I know you’re in there,” Armin called. “If you haven’t got this door open in the next thirty seconds I’m calling Mikasa to tell her that you’ve given yourself to a life of reclusion.”

“What?” Eren said weakly, scratching one hand through his hair as he blinked in a daze. “Huh? Oh, um, no – hold on.”

 Eren tripped and stumbled his way across the room to the door and yanked it open with enough force to cringe at the solid blast of cool air that barrelled straight into his bare chest. Armin, who was standing right on the threshold, did not look amused as he thrust his hand hard enough in Eren’s face for him to startle.

“Four days, Eren,” he said as he splayed his fingers to match. “Four days and you haven’t answered your phone _once_.”

“Haven’t I?” Eren blinked and then winced because it was far brighter out here than it was in his room.

Armin’s eyes narrowed dangerously as his gaze flickered over Eren critically. “Have you been eating?”

“Um… yes?” Eren said because he was pretty sure that was the right answer here.

“Eating something that isn’t Pop-tarts,” Armin corrected.

“ _Yes_ ,” Eren snapped defensively, because Hot Pockets weren’t Pop-tarts.

Armin made a sound of frustration and threw up his hands in disbelief before shoving Eren aside and marching his way into his room only to stop after the first step and gape. “Oh my god, Eren! You’ve been robbed!”

Eren scanned his room and supposed with the way everything was _everywhere_ it did look a bit like he was the victim of a horribly botched home invasion where the only goal seemed to have been to dump everything on the floor. “No, that’s… Uh, I’ve been busy.”

Armin sent him a look like they were five again and Armin had discovered for the first time that Eren didn’t like cheese on his pasta _the barbarian_. He bent to gingerly pick up something that might have been a sock once but was probably a new life form now. “ _Busy_ ,” he repeated, before letting the sock drop back down to the floor and turning to face him fully. “Okay, Eren, what the hell is going on?”

“Nothing,” He frowned as he slammed the door to his room shut. “I don’t know what you’re so worked up about. It’s Monday morning, it’s not like I’ve had any classes.”

Armin’s look shifted between disbelief and concern rapidly for a moment. “Eren,” he said gently. “Eren, its _Wednesday_. Also, I have no clue if you noticed; but it’s nearly three in the afternoon.”

Eren blinked and then thought on it a bit. “Oh,” he said as he remembered the look Reiner and Berthold had both shot him when he shuffled out to use the toilet earlier. “Actually, that makes a lot of sense.”

Armin sighed and all his righteous indignation seemed to float out of him all at once. “Okay, so I’m going to assume – drawing evidence from past occurrences – that you’ve overcome your creative block.”

Eren nodded sheepishly and scratched at a smudge of black that stained chin. “I’ve been on a roll. It’s like, I can’t stop, you know?”

“I know,” Armin smiled fondly but exasperatedly. “Mikasa and I long since gave up on getting you to act like a functional human being when you get like this, but the least you can do is answer your phone once in a while. Mikasa’s been worried sick.”

Eren winced and cast a glance around his room, spotting his phone sticking out between the fanned pages of a textbook. “Sorry,” he said.

Armin shook his head. “It’s alright I suppose, but you’re taking a break today.” Eren made a sound of protest but Armin just shook his head firmly. “No. You’re going to go have a shower and I’ll call Mikasa to let her know you’re alive and haven’t accidently choked on your own stupidity, then we’re going to clean up you room – no, Eren, we can’t just leave it. Besides, you need a break from arts for a while.”

“Halo and pizza night?” Eren asked hopefully because if Armin was going to be confiscating his sketchbook it was the least he could offer in return.

Armin grinned at him and suddenly it was like high school all over again. “Sound like a plan,” he said, only to frown a moment later. “I have to ask though; does Levi know you’re okay?”

“Oh, _fuck_.”

.

“I _said_ I was sorry,” Eren grumbled into the receiver as he towelled absently at his hair.

“ _And I said that was the worst excuse for an apology I’d ever heard_ ,” Levi said. “ _It would have been nice if you hadn’t just vanished off the face of the earth like that after webcamming_.”

“I didn’t do it intentionally. I’ve already apologized, what more do you want?” Eren groaned. “It’s like, once I get inspired I sort of forget about everything else.”

It was silent on the other end for a moment and Eren was almost starting to think the call dropped out when Levi let out a sigh. “ _It’s not like I don’t understand where you’re coming from, but some consideration would be nice_.”

Eren glanced around the room. Armin had left back to his place – ostensibly to grab his laptop but in reality to give Eren some privacy for his phone call with Levi. While he was in the shower Armin had tidied up – Eren felt a bit guilty about this, but mostly he was just immensely relieved he didn’t have to do it himself now – and everything was packed away orderly and a pile of washing was sitting in a corner awaiting its fate.

His sketchbooks were stacked neatly to the left of his desk.

“I’ve been behind on this project for so long I wanted to get it out while I could,” Eren confessed as he sat down heavily on his bed and allow the towel to fall loose around his neck.

“ _What was it that inspired you_?” Levi asked curiously.

Eren’s neck flushed hot and he remembered sharp eyes and dark hair and the way Levi’s lips curled perfectly up at the corners – the charcoal sketches of his long fingers and the way Eren had spent hours carefully trying to mimic the way his bangs fell just right, perfect and even.

“Nothing much,” he muttered. “Just, um, things I guess.”

“ _Things_ ,” Levi purred in amusement, and the sound made something lurch frantically in Eren’s stomach and suddenly it was hard to breathe. He wondered how Levi could have no clue what effect his voice alone could have on him when he had it hit just the right pitch.

Eren felt cornered. “Anyway, I have to go,” he said hurriedly. “Um, Armin’s coming back over and we’re going to do pizza and Halo.”

Levi snorted. “ _I forget you’re just a kid sometimes_ ,” he said. “ _Jesus – pizza and Halo_.”

“I’m not a kid,” he snapped loudly. “I’m nineteen, I go to college; I pay for my own rent. That’s not a kid.”

It was important – drastically so – that he establish that. He didn’t want Levi to think of him as a kid he called to chat to when he was bored; he wanted Levi to think of him as his equal. It was on the tip of his tongue to add ‘ _I’m legal_ ’ to the end of his tirade but he bit down hard on the impulse at the last possible second because fuck, could he be any more obvious?

“ _Uh huh,_ ” Levi said. “ _Right, of course. My mistake. I’ll talk to you later, brat_.”

He hung up and the sound of the dial tone in Eren’s ears was loud and empty except for the resounding echo of ‘ _brat’_.

Eren sighed and tossed his phone down his bed, flopping down to bury his face in his pillow like an overdramatic teenage girl who’d just gone through her first breakup. His door squeaked open and he heard the sound of Armin pausing as he came into the room.

“Call go okay?” He asked.

Eren grunted.

“Want some Ben and Jerry’s as well pizza?”

“This is why you’re my best friend,” Eren groaned, “You get me.”

.

They spent the rest of the day and much into the evening pigging out on not only pizza and ice cream, but about twenty chocolate bars from the vending machine down the hall.

Hawaiian and over-priced Reese’s Pieces had never tasted so good.

“Alright, I have a paper I have to finish tonight so I should probably get back now,” Armin sighed, letting out a deep groan as he stretched away the cramps of six hours of straight video gaming.

“Need me to walk with you?” Eren offered around a mouthful of chocolate.

Armin sent him a fond look. “That’s sweet and all Eren, but I can manage. Besides, you probably want to get back to your art.”

Eren winced guilty. “No, it’s not …” He trailed off and decided to go for honesty. “I feel like we never have time for each other anymore. Like today? Today was great. I want more of todays. I want every day to be todays. I don’t want to become those friends who just grow apart, you know?”

Armin looked honestly as disturbed at the idea as Eren felt. “That’ll never happen,” he said with complete conviction. “I know we’ve been busy lately and things have been weird since Mikasa left, but we’re never going to become those kinds of people, Eren. Not even if I have to suffer through pizza and Halo night for the rest of my life.”

Eren snorted. “Oh, shut up. You were not suffering.”

Armin’s smiled softened. “I’ve missed you too – and you’re right. We should go back to doing this more often.”

 “Yeah,” Eren said, and his smile felt much too wide to be anything short of wholly inappropriate. “Definitely.”

Armin laughed. “Okay, I’m going to clamp down on this moment before you decide you’ve filled your emotional quote for the entire year and communicate in nothing but renditions of ‘I’ll make a man out of you’ for the next six months.”

“I can’t make a man out of you – He-man bet me to it when he lent you his hairstyle,” Eren quipped, laughing as he dodged Armin’s playful swat at his ear.

“Alright, I’ll stop by before Marketing tomorrow and if you’re still in bed I’m dragging you to the lecture in your boxers.”

“I don’t know why everybody thinks you’re sweet,” Eren sighed. “You’re a complete sadist.”

Armin’s reply was a completely insincere smile and closing the door louder than was particularly necessary.

Eren looked around at the wrappers and pizza boxes sprawled across the floor before deciding to call it a night on the productivity front and just see if Levi wanted to video chat. It would be roughly after midnight in Toronto but Eren had complete faith that Levi was awake and alert.

_hey, you ready to see my ugly mug again?_

**_New Text Message: Levi – 9:06  
_ ** _I could probably tolerate it_

Eren smiled and leant against his bed as he pulled his laptop over to rest on his knees.

He was actually prepared this time round, so when Levi’s face swam into view after a moment of buffering Eren’s heart only did a few warm-up somersaults instead of an entire Olympic routine.

“You look good,” he said and Levi raised an eyebrow. Eren cleared his throat and tried to clarify. “I mean, compared to last time. You don’t quite look like you’ve got one foot in the grave now.”

It was true. Levi’s skin was still icy pale – and Eren was starting to figure that might just be his natural complexion – but his face wasn’t lined with the vestiges of pain.

“ _And you have something that looks like permanent marker on your chin_ ,” Levi observed drily and Eren’s hand flew up even though he knew he couldn’t feel it. “ _I thought charcoal was your thing_.”

It was definitely the embarrassment of being caught with permanent marker on his skin and not the thrill of the fact Levi _remembered_ that made Eren’s ears redden.  “I was just experimenting with some things. Is it, like, really obvious? Because I went into town to get some pizza with this on my face.”

Levi snorted. “ _Only if you look hard enough, I guess._ ”

“Oh, and you were looking hard enough?” It was meant to come off as teasing, but instead it sounded undeniably flirty.

Levi raised an eyebrow at him. “ _I’m sorry; I forgot you were museum masterpiece that charged for viewing_.”

“It’s okay, you get the view for free,” Eren answered before frowning. “Well, more like however much you pay for our ridiculously long phone calls anyway,” he amended.

Levi actually laughed at that and it was definitely a sound Eren could get used to hearing. “ _How was pizza and Halo_?”

The pizza had been cold and Halo had lagged like a bitch but the only thing that came out was an enthusiastic: “Brilliant!”

“ _Whoa there cowboy, didn’t realize you were such a fanboy_.”

Eren flushed. “That’s not … It was just great getting to spend some time with Armin, you know? We actually had a talk and I think we’re finally good again.”

Levi knew of course, because Eren had told him – told him about missing Mario Kart and movie nights and going to ridiculously late showings at the cinema for the discounts Ymir gave them when there weren’t many patrons.

“ _That’s good,_ ” Levi smiled; chin resting lightly on his hand. He sounded so completely and utterly sincere about it too. It was guileless and honest and unlike any expression Eren had seen him wear yet.

It made him a little breathless.

“Yeah,” Eren grinned – he couldn’t stop that today. “Yeah, more than good.”

They chatted for a while about inconsequential things – Levi’s work and how he was convinced Hanji might actually be tapping his phones, Eren’s paper due in a week that he thought might be on Monet but could just as likely be on goddamn monkeys for all the attention he had paid in that class – and once or twice Levi made to ask what Eren had decided on for his art class only for Eren to latch onto the nearest unrelated topic instead.

He spent the entire call trying to fix the details of Levi’s face in his mind – the length of his lashes, the shadows on his jaw – and when they finally hung-up after close to two hours of mindless chatting, the first thing he did was lunge for his sketchbook.

Levi filled pages upon pages – his face titled at every angle imaginable, his eyes closed, shut, narrowed. There were endless repetitions of his hands – some in movement, some just fingers furled loosely against a table.

Eren flicked past them all to a clear piece of paper and fumbled in his drawer for a stick of charcoal.

Levi’s smile was burnt into his mind and Eren didn’t even have to struggle to remember it – the fan of his lashes, the depth of his lips.

He took a deep breath and started to draw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Is this the part where I admit I'm actually Australian and not American and I have to spend ridiculously long amounts of time making sure I'm using things as simple as Hot Pockets right?)
> 
> Thank you so much to every single person who has left me a lovely comment - or any comment because they're all lovely. I only tend to reply to comments that ask me a direct question because most of the time I honestly don't know what to say to all the wonderful things people tell me and by the time I calm myself down enough to reply it's been too long to be anything short of awkward for me to respond. I read every single one - sometimes six or seven times because they make me smile so much. This amazing things you guys tell me - even if it's a simple "well done keep going" - are the reason this story exists <3
> 
> //seductive whispering  
> next chaper things might get sexy also it might even be levi POV


	9. The towel nemesis

Levi awoke with the distinct feeling something was amiss and a sound like a wood-chipper in his left ear.

Rolling over groggily, he batted with one hand along his bedside table until his fingers slammed heavily down on his alarm – only to discover that it didn’t silence the chirpy vibration that was still echoing loudly next to him.

_What the ever loving fuck?_

Levi cracked one eye open against the heavenly press of his pillow and after a moment of heavy blinking realized that the sound was his phone buzzing. With sleepy fingers he grabbed at it before rolling over to retreat into the cushiony cocoon of blankets. The screen was vastly bright in the space between his covers and his pillows, but after a moment of squinting he was able to read the message.

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 11:03  
_ ** _internet down ):_

It took a moment of staring for it all to sink in.

Levi glanced from his phone to his alarm clock sitting dead and black beside him – the screen was empty of any numbers whatsoever.

That clock was expensive just like everything else Levi owned. It wouldn’t have just shorted out. Slowly, Levi pushed himself upright in bed and craned his neck to peer into the little space between his bed and the accompanying end table where the power sockets were – he was not surprised at what he saw.

He turned back to his phone and dialled. Hanji picked up on the third ring.

“ _Morning grumpy-butt_ ,” she sang cheerfully. “ _Sure is chilly out this morning, isn’t it?_ ”

“Hanji,” Levi said, much more calmly than he actually felt. “Would you care to explain why my alarm clock has been unplugged?”

“ _Because it’s a Sunday,_ ” she said without missing a beat. “ _And Erwin ordered me to keep you out of the office even if I had to tie you to a chair. Considering the fact I’m not too certain you would have appreciated me taking our relationship to the bondage level, I thought I’d try a subtler tactic_.”

Levi couldn’t stop the honest to god growl that slipped out from between his lips. “I have shit to do today,” he snapped, although he made no move to shift from where he was comfortably arranged against his mountain of pillows.

“ _You can relax, I’ve taken care of it_ ,” Hanji huffed. “ _I thought you and I could have a little girl time – you know, wine, some horror movies, talk about the boys we like_.”

“Hanji,” Levi said. “It’s eleven in the morning. You can’t be serious about the wine.” The rest of her sentence caught up with his sleep-slowed brain. “And I’m not –.”

“ _I’m always serious about wine, Levi. You know that.”_ It would have been funnier if Levi had thought she was joking. “ _I’ll swing by Erwin’s and nab the good stuff and if you’re lucky he’ll even have that new horror flick you wanted to see_.”

“I thought Erwin confiscated his spare key from you.”

“ _Oh, Levi. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies_.”

“You made a copy didn’t you?”

“ _And if you know what’s good for you, it’ll stay between you and me – I control your work flow. You better get a wriggle on. I’ll be there in about half an hour_.”

Hanji hung-up without letting Levi get another word in edgewise and he was left sitting comfortable but annoyed with his phone pressed to his ear.

After a second of debating the pros and cons of severing all ties with Hanji he decided it probably wasn’t worth it in the long run. Partly because she was one of the few people whose company he could tolerate but mostly because she was the only person in the office who could make half decent coffee.

His phone went off again.

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 11:11  
_ ** _just talked to the RA. apparently internet down in whole building all day. theyre doing repairs._

Levi frowned at the screen. While they’d had no firm plans to webcam, they’d fallen into something of a routine wherein video-chatting had replaced regular phone calls as their preferred method of communication.

The idea that he wouldn’t be seeing Eren’s alarmingly bright eyes and messy hair was strangely disheartening in a way Levi admitted was vaguely pathetic.

He’d seen plenty of pictures of the kid before they’d finally crossed that final border into webcamming, but seeing Eren move and talk and _laugh_ had been a completely different thing entirely. Photos didn’t do the restless energy that seemed to be constantly pouring out of him any justice, and Levi sometimes felt exhausted just watching his constant fidgeting.

Eren was gorgeous – even if the brat seemed to have no fucking clue – and Levi had made a game out of seeing how flustered he could get him because the bleed of red in his cheeks and his inability to meet his eye was too fucking adorable for this world and Levi was probably a sadist deep down.

Sighing, Levi tapped a quick reply – _I’m being forced to socialize with Hanji today, I’ll call you later –_ before tossing the covers back and climbing out of bed with a groan.

Fuck it, he was having a shower and if Hanji rocked up while he was in the bathroom tough luck to her, she could wait in the hall.

Unlike Erwin, Levi had never been stupid enough to give her a spare key.

.

When Levi emerged from the shower it was to find Hanji sitting on his living room couch with her knees tucked beneath her chin and his phone in her hand.

He had no clue how she’d gotten in the building or how she’d known his phone password, but he’d given up hoping for answers about half the fucking things Hanji did years ago.

“The wine is on the table,” she said without looking up. “I took two bottles of the most expensive looking ones in his rack.”

Levi grunted in appreciation as he bypassed the living room to ditch the towel he was rubbing his hair with in the laundry. “One of these days he’s going to bring up the fact that all his good wine seems to disappear.”

Hanji made a sound and waved a hand absently. “If he wanted to drink it so badly he should have hidden it better. My god, it’s like the man doesn’t know us at all.”

Levi stopped by the kitchen and hefted the nearest bottle up in his palm. Tucked beneath the label was a note.

_Levi, Hanji – I hope you enjoy this at least a fraction of how much I would have if I’d gotten the chance to drink it.  
\- Erwin_

Levi snorted and thumped it back down on the table. “I wouldn’t say that,” he called back to Hanji. “You should never doubt Erwin’s omniscience.”

Hanji hummed in reply and Levi frowned and strode back to the living room – a distracted Hanji rarely meant anything good.

“Wow,” she said as he stopped behind the sofa and attempted to peer over her shoulder. “You sure message Eren a lot.”

Levi jammed his elbow down hard in the junction of her neck and shoulder and grabbed his phone back while she let out a high pitched squeal and recoiled. “Get out of my apartment,” he hissed.

“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy,” she sighed, wincing as she rolled her shoulder back and forth. “It wasn’t like there was anything interesting there. _Honestly_. I was disappointed. I was hoping for some steamy sexts or some nudes; some suggestive flirting at the very least.” She shook her head ruefully.  
“You need to step up your game.”

“You’re talking about a nineteen year old college kid who lives in California,” Levi said flatly. “ _Nineteen_.”

“Exactly,” Hanji insisted. “He’s been legal for an entire year now.”

Levi made a noise of disgust and rounded the couch to slam his phone down hard on the coffee table. “Nineteen,” he repeated for the third time, because he thought it was an important point to establish.

“You’re really hung up on that, huh?” Hanji observed dryly as Levi sat down next to her.

“I’m not hung up on anything. Just let it go, alright?” he snapped.

For a moment it looked like Hanji was going to push – she was never good at letting things that interested her go and Levi saw the battle in her eyes between tact and curiosity – but after a moment she simply sighed and got to her feet. “What’s the time?” She asked.

Levi blinked at her and then frowned, thrown by the topic change. “Just after twelve,” he said suspiciously. “Why?”

“Excellent,” Hanji beamed, slapping her thighs. “It’s noon now. Sounds like the perfect time for a glass of wine.”

“And people think I have a drinking problem,” he marvelled.

Hanji flipped him off cheerfully as she sauntered into the kitchen. “Put the DVD in the player for me, will you?”

“And whose goddamn apartment is it?” Levi groused as he heaved himself off the couch and snatched what he presumed was the DVD in question from the coffee table, but it was without any real malice.

There was the loud pop of wine being opened from the kitchen and the heady _chink_ of Hanji selecting wineglasses – probably the good ones too, god knows that woman couldn’t keep her hands off – as Levi crouched by the TV and slid the DVD into the slot.

He wondered what he’d been doing with his apparent day off if Hanji hadn’t insisted on this impromptu ‘girl time’ and conceded that it probably would have been much the same except dressing optional.  

“Everything good?” Hanji asked as she trotted back over with a wineglass in each hand and flopped down on the sofa next to him. “Movie in? Ass on couch? Yes? Good, good. Remote, please.”

Levi traded the remote for a glass of wine and settled himself against the comfortable leather as the TV flickered to life in a showy explosion of colours and noise.

“Oh god,” he said in disgust as he took a sip of his wine. “I hope the whole move isn’t going to be that sporadic.”

Hanji just grinned around the rim of her glass.

They’d only been watching for ten minutes or so when Levi’s phone went off on the table – loud and sudden in the dramatically tense silence of the room – and he only just managed to reach it before Hanji.

“Stop trying to snoop, wipe that pout off your face and watch the damn movie,” he grouched and she shot him a moderately amused look before pretending to be immersed in the screen.

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 12:35  
_ ** _im going out later so i probs wont answer the phone before midnight my time_

Levi snorted.

_Don’t you have work to do or something?_

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 12:36  
_ ** _fuck that i want to get drunk_

Levi looked up briefly from his phone to the television screen. What even was going on anymore? Levi had no clue. Was the movie about ghosts or demons? He dimly recalled something about an exorcism, but fucked if he knew for sure.

He returned to texting Eren.

_Thought you didn’t get drunk easily?_

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 12:37  
_ ** _just because i dont get drunk easily doesnt mean i cant_

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 12:38  
_ ** _besides jean is hosting and i never miss a chance to make him suffer_

Levi actually laughed at that because he’d heard more than enough about this Jean kid from Eren to know that he wasn’t exaggerating.

“Well now,” Hanji said and Levi looked up to see that at some point in the past few minutes she’d paused the movie and was looking at him was a calculated expression, “isn’t that interesting?”

Levi scowled.  “Didn’t I just tell you to mind your own business?”

“I am minding my own business!” She protested. “I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve seen you laugh like that! It’s my duty as your concerned friend to make sure you’re not being taken advantage of.”

Levi stared at her dubiously. “Taken advantage of?” He repeated. “Really, Hanji? You’re worried a college brat who can barely tell his dick from his brain is taking advantage of me?”

“You have a delicate soul,” she insisted stubbornly as she gave up any real pretence of watching the movie, downed her wine in one gulp before slamming the empty glass on the table and turned so she was boxing Levi in between her and an arm of the sofa.

“Back the fuck up before I make you.”

“ _Levi_ ,” she said as she leaned in closer. “I have been patient – more than patient – but I need to _know_. Who is Eren? Who is this mysterious kid and what are your intentions towards him and that cute little booty.”

“Have you been facebook stalking him?” Levi hissed, feeling vaguely affronted.

Hanji snorted. “Oh, like you’re in any position to judge. You started that little trend.”

“That’s different,” he growled, “seeing as how I actually know the brat.”

Hanji waved a hand dismissively. “Details,” she said. “After staring at an ass that fine for hours on end you begin to feel a connection to a person. We should start an appreciation club. Do you want to be president or treasurer?”

“You are thirty-two years old,” he reminded her.

“Two whole years younger than you,” she smirked. “But look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t agree.”

“I don’t agree,” Levi said flatly and Hanji just chuckled and ruffled his hair like he was a goddamn dog or something.

“Don’t lie to me. You are completely smitten and undeniably attracted. It’s written all over your face. Over ten years of friendship has taught me all your tells, Levi.”

Levi closed his eyes and took a deep breath, fingers tightening around the stem of his glass in one hand and the slick plastic of his phone in the other, reminding himself that Hanji’s intentions were well enough and her heart tended to be in the right place. “I’m glad you find this whole thing so amusing,” he said tightly.

Hanji sighed loudly and withdrew slightly, giving Levi enough space to breathe. “I’m only hounding you because I know that your sphere of existence tends to be limited to work and that’s about it. If somebody doesn’t remind you that life exists outside of writing reports and yelling at interns once in a while I honestly think we’d never get you out of the office.”

Levi shot her an icy glare. “I’m not that bad.”

“Levi, you are a bona fide workaholic,” Hanji said bluntly. “I’m amazed you’ve even managed to get this far with Eren given your complete absence of social skills. Your height isn’t the only thing that’s stunted.”

“Did you just –.”

“Yes,” Hanji said firmly. “I did. But that is beside the point. I didn’t come here to pick on your height.”

“And I’m guessing you didn’t come here to drink wine and watch fucking teenagers make dumb as fuck decisions on my television screen either,” he sighed, finally setting aside his own glass of wine even though it was still half full and everything in him itched to down it whole and hope it blotted out whatever cheesy let’s-talk-about-our-feelings time they were about to have.

“No, no. I did. I said wine, horror movie and boys we like. We’ve completed – okay, we’ve attempted, cut me some slack here, I’m impatient – the first two and now we’re moving on to the main course.”

“I don’t suppose this would be an opportune time to excuse myself for a shit?” Levi asked.

“The only thing you’re shitting out right now is feelings,” Hanji said grimly. “You’ll shit so many feelings you’ll think I’ve slipped you a feelings laxative.”

“The only thing talking about _feelings_ ,” here Levi sneered the word, “and shitting have in common is they’re both painful as fuck and sometimes get stuck on the way out.”

Hanji made a face. “Okay, any other day I’d love to just sit here and see how many different ways we can compare things to pooping, but right now we’re talking about how you and your penis feel about Eren.”

“You really want to do this?” Levi growled. “You seriously want to talk about this? Fine. _Yes_ , I think Eren Jaeger is adorable and makes my heart skip a fucking beat when we talk like I’m a goddamn Disney princess. _Yes_ , I would want to be president of the Eren Jaeger Ass Appreciation Club. _Yes_ , both me and my fucking dick are attracted to him even when he hasn’t slept in two days because he couldn’t stop drawing and he hasn’t showered and I can tell because he’s got fucking marker on his chin like the little shit he is and I –.” Levi cut himself off and closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath and trying to tamp down on the restless anger and energy and frustration because he’d been doing a really fucking god job at acting like Eren was just the kid he called when he was feeling lonely and then Hanji had to go and demand they talk about shitty things like _feelings_ and Levi wasn’t exactly sure how he was supposed to call Eren later and act like nothing at all had changed.

It was silent for a second except for the heavy angered panting of Levi’s breaths.

“Okay?” Hanji asked after a moment.

Levi took in one last shudder of air. “Okay,” he said.

Silence. “More wine?” She asked.

“ _Please_.”

.

They finished the rest of the movie in silence except for the moments when Hanji got up to offer him more wine and eventually dig out some popcorn.

Levi didn’t think it was an apology – because she hadn’t really been in the wrong, he was well aware of that – but more of a kind of gentle peace offering.

They’d known each other a long time and Hanji knew when to push, when to not and when to just shut up and feed him booze and junk food.

Once they finished the DVD they’d pilfered from Erwin’s they spent a few hours surfing through movie channels and stomaching a few dreadful romcoms and one more horror film where the cast was possibly even dumber than the first one.

When Hanji left she did so silently and without a word, pausing only briefly at the door to kiss Levi’s forehead like they were twenty-three again and his boyfriend had decided that he could probably do better than a 5’3” clean freak who flipped his shit over crumbs on the carpet.

“You know I fucking hate it when you do that,” he growled even though it was a blatant lie and Hanji only smiled at him and took care being marginally less loud as she closed the door behind herself.

Levi glanced at the clock hanging just in the living room. It was only just past eight.

With Hanji gone and Eren not answering his phone for – Levi checked the clock in the living room – another hour, at least, Levi was at something of a loss what to do.

He supposed he could go to the gym or something, but the idea of leaving the apartment right now wasn’t very appealing. He could clean but that was something he liked to do not as a distraction but as a genuine activity.

_Fuck it_ , he decided after standing in the entrance to his apartment long enough to feel like the biggest loser this side of the Canadian border, _I’m having a motherfucking bath and I don’t care who judges me_.

It wasn’t that Levi made a habit of bathing twice a day, but he had a goddamn spa-tub and if there was anything that deserved the use of a spa-tub it was having to deal with shit like conversations about emotions and feelings.

He’d barely stripped off when his phone rang from where he’d set on top of the hamper – then again.

Levi glanced at it, decided whomever it was could fucking wait seeing as how it was still too early to be Eren, and sunk into the tub with a kind of indignation that was probably out of place when it came to something as mundane as a bath and a vibrating phone.

It took a little bit to calm down enough to actively appreciate the bubbles and the jets of water – it was simple but nice, Levi was a fan of practicality over embellishment – but just when he thought he might be able to close his eyes and doze off his phone went off again.

And again.

And again.

“Oh my god, somebody better be dying,” Levi groaned as he hoisted himself out of the tub with enough force to slosh a good helping of water over the edge and wrapping a towel loosely around his waist more for comfort than modesty  as he reached for his phone.

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 8:12  
_ ** _bck frm party itw as lme_

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 8:13  
_ ** _jean s a fukcfase nd i hpe he trpis ova a cat nd braks something imrpoant_

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 8:33  
_ ** _r u there or r u busy_

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 8:38  
_ ** _im going to assume your busy call me when your not_

**_Received New Text Message: Eren – 8:39  
_ ** _please_

His text had gotten moderately more articulate as they went, but Levi wasn’t holding onto high hopes that Eren would be anything other than completely wasted as he dialled his number one handed.

Eren picked up after barely a few seconds of ringing. “ _Levi_?”

“Very good, you can read the caller id,” he said as he sat down on the edge of the tub. “I thought you said you were going to be at that party until midnight, fuckface.”

“ _I left early_ ,” Eren said. “ _I don’t know why I went, I can’t stand Jean. I don’t know why people seem to think we’re friends, I …”_ He trailed off suddenly. “ _Sorry, were you actually busy? Am I interrupting something_?”

He sounded so anxious that any and all irritation Levi had just drained out of him and he sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “No, it’s fine. I was just taking a goddamn bath and the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. It’s too cold to sit here in a fucking towel, Jaeger.”

An interesting sound came through the other end of the line. “ _You’re just in a towel_?”

Levi frowned. “Unless you’d rather I answered the phone ass-naked. Fuck, I was in a bath. People generally bathe naked.” It was silent on the other end of the phone. “You there, Eren?”

“ _I, uh, yeah. I’m just_ …”

Was this about the being naked thing? Levi didn’t think he’d especially crossed any lines with that one seeing as how Eren generally seemed to have no problem with rousing renditions of his bowel movements.

“You’re not still drunk are you? I thought you didn’t get drunk easily.” He asked sceptically.

“ _What? No, I’m not drunk!_ ”

“Well, what the fuck is it then? You’re being about as responsive as a fucking rock, Jesus. I thought you wanted me to call. If you’re jerking off or something I can call back.” Eren made a sound at the other end – a lot like the first but a good deal more desperate sounding – and something dropped like molten lead in Levi’s stomach. “Holy shit, you’re not actually – _are you_?”

“ _No! I just – oh my god, I’m not, I just…”_ Eren cut himself off with a sound like he was choking on his own embarrassment and Levi had to remind himself to breathe because if he was reading this whole situation right – and he fucking had to be, there wasn’t really any other way to read it; Eren was apparently aroused at the idea of Levi sitting there in a towel; or nothing at all – it didn’t really _mean_ anything because Eren was _nineteen_ and half drunk and ruled by his hormones.

Levi could play this cool. He could.

“It’s okay, chill the fuck out. I’m not going to flip my shit just because you apparently have a hard-on for half naked guys talking on the phone,” he said, and was immensely relieved that his voice was as steady as ever.

Eren made a sound like he was in agony. “ _Can you just please not say stuff like that to me right now? It’s just, oh my god, you’re really attractive, okay? And having you keep reminding me that you’re naked isn’t fucking helping anything_.”

Levi was suddenly finding it very difficult to keep his composure. “Wait, wait. Did you just say you think I’m attractive?”

“ _Yes! Jesus, do you want a medal or something? Can we let it go, please._ ”

Levi honestly couldn’t say what he was thinking – yes he could, he wasn’t thinking at all – when he said in return: “Speak for yourself; you’re not fucking bad looking either.”

“ _I – what? Me?_ ”

Levi was feeling too hot when he really should be feeling too cold, and the towel around his waist felt itchy and unwanted against his skin. “You heard me. With your goddamn hair and your _eyes_ ; fuck.”

“ _Well, what about you?”_ Eren snapped. _“With your glasses and your_ everything _and your – your sitting there fucking naked even after…_ ” he trailed off with a noise that directly expressed the frustration Levi felt. “ _I can’t help it, I just…”_

“Eren,” Levi said, because it sounded like Eren was one more good sentence away from either crying or hanging up on him. “ _Eren_. I’m not mad, fuck. Who on earth would be mad that someone finds them sexually attractive? And what did I just say about you, or have you not been listening at all? You’re not the only one.”

He could hear the sound of Eren taking in a deep breath. “ _Are you? I mean, does it…_ ”

“If you’re attempting to ask if the thought of you getting hard over me is arousing then the answer is yes, alright?” Levi closed his eyes and tried to ignore the definite tightness in his stomach, the way his skin was burning hot and he could no longer find a comfortable position to sit in.

“ _So you’re… right now?_ ”

“Good god, you’re the worst at this,” Levi sighed. “Yes, Eren, right now I have a fucking boner thinking about you.”

Eren let out a shaky laugh at the other end of the line. “ _So, do you want me to just go now or …?_ ”

_How the fuck had the situation gotten this out of hand?_

“What I want is…” Levi paused, frowned. “Okay, first I need you to be honest. Are you drunk right now?”

“ _No! I’m just, I’m a little tipsy still, I guess? But I’m sober, I swear_.”

_Am I really doing this?_ Levi wondered, but the way he was already half hard just from hearing Eren make those little noises was answer enough. He was really doing this.

Levi took in a deep breath. “What I want,” he said, and the words nearly caught in his throat. “Is for you to take off your clothes for me.”

Eren was breathing loudly and – after a second – the sound of rustling fabric sounded faintly, the sharp twist and furl of clothes being drawn off. Levi closed his eyes and imagined the crane of Eren’s neck as his shirt slipped up, the smooth curve of his hipbones as he heard the sharp hiss of a descending zipper, the little trail of hair leading down his stomach revealed as his boxers slipped down past muscle-thick thighs.

“ _Okay_ ,” Eren breathed.

Levi couldn’t remember the last time he’d done anything like this – fuck, he was really getting old – but the way every beat of his heart echoed loud in his ears, sending blood spilling hot all the way through him was enough.

“Are you sitting?” He asked and Eren made a small noise of affirmation. “Good. Now, I want you to tell me what you’re thinking about.”

Eren’s breathing was ragged, loud and uneven in Levi’s ear. With his eyes closed he could almost imagine Eren was right there. “ _I’m thinking about how I wish you’d answered the phone without a towel_ ,” Eren said immediately. “ _I’m thinking about,” –_ a minor pause, a hitch in his breath – “ _about what you would have looked like without it_.”  

“Do you want me to take the towel off?” Levi asked as he slipped his fingers underneath the tuck in the fabric, loosening it with a steady flex of his fingers.

“ _Yes,”_ Eren breathed desperately and Levi smirked.

“You’re going to have to do better than that, brat. How badly do you wish I was naked right now?”

The noise that slipped down the phone line was a heady mix of desperation and pleasure. “ _Just … really, really badly. Please, can you just…”_

Eren’s eagerness in everything in life carried over into sex too, and it was everything Levi could do not just to rush things at that thought alone.

“Alright,” he said, and finally let the towel slip loose. “That’s good enough. The towel’s gone.”

The groan Eren let slip was probably more out of relief than anything else, but it didn’t stop the way Levi’s cock twitched at the sound. God, he was going to make Eren do that again if it was the last fucking thing he did.

“ _Levi, can I..?”_

“You want to touch yourself?” He said bluntly as his own hand floated down to wrap lightly around his base. “You want to touch yourself while thinking about me doing the same?”

“ _Yes, god, yes,_ ” Eren shuddered. “ _I’m just – Jesus Christ, Levi.”_

Levi breathed out as he moved his hand, palm rough against sensitive skin. “Not yet,” he said and Eren made a garbled sounding whine. “Fuck, wish you had fucking internet,” he hissed. “You don’t know how many times I’ve wished I could see you shirtless.”

“ _I think I do_.” Eren’s voice was loud and gasping and Levi could imagine him squirming desperately as he sat on the edge of his bed trying not to touch himself. “ _If it’s half as much I’ve imagined you shirtless. Are you touching yourself?”_

Instead of answering Levi twisted his wrist and groaned at the sharp spike of heat that flooded through him as he brushed his thumb over the slit of his cock – smirking at the way Eren’s breath came out in a long _whooshing_ shudder.

“ _You can’t just … fuck,_ Levi.”

He could be cruel – see how long it took Eren to break – but Levi was too fucking turned on right now to be anything but extremely close to coming at the lightest of touches as it were and he could tell Eren wouldn’t last long the second he started.

Patience was for another day – hopefully – right now was for hearing how Eren sounded when he came.

“Okay,” Levi said around a groan as his hips bucked up hard against his hand. “You can touch yourself.”

A long wispy moan poured from Eren’s lips. “ _Yes, fuck._ ”

“Tell me,” Levi faltered, rasping loud as he struggled to catch his breath. “Tell me how you feel, Eren.”

The whine Eren made at the sound of his name was knowledge that Levi stored away instantly. “ _Good_ ,” he groaned. “ _Just so fucking good. God, Levi. Wish you were here, wish I could,_ ” he stuttered out a loud gasp. “ _Wish I could touch you – wish you could touch me. Levi, Levi, Levi_.”

The sound of his name on repeat – the way it sounded like a fucking mantra when Eren said it – was nearly enough to push him over the edge. The side of the bathtub was digging against his thighs and he could distantly hear the bubbling of the spa jets, but all his focus had narrowed down to Eren and the sounds he was making.

“Are you close? Tell me, Eren; _are you close_?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Eren said helplessly. “ _I’m just – I’m going to…”_

The sound Eren made as came was like all the air had been punched out of him and Levi squeezed his eyes shut and imagined Eren’s hand tight around his cock, come spurting over his fist, dripping down his skin as he gasped for breath, stomach flexing desperately and face red, Levi’s name on his lips –

Levi groaned as the image pushed him over the edge and for a second there was nothing but waves of pleasure crashing through him and turning everything into a blissful blackout of any sensation that wasn’t just overwhelming in its sheer intensity.

It took him a good minute to come down from his high, to realize the stickiness in his hand and the soreness in his back, the heavy breathing on the other end of the line. He was winded enough from the whole thing that all he could do was gasp heavily and listen to Eren do the same as he waited for his brain to properly come back online.

The line was silent except for their panting – and it kept being silent long enough for it to become awkward.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Eren said suddenly and Levi startled but before he could open his mouth to say something – anything at all – the phone line had gone silent.

Not the absence of speech silence – but dial tone flat.

It took Levi an entire moment to comprehend what happened.

_Eren had just fucking hung-up on him._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you notice a dramatic decrease in silly little typos you can probably thank Imanza for being an excellent human being and doing a final read through for me.
> 
> There is now art for this chapter courtesy of whiteyoukai over on tumblr who drew [this](http://whiteyoukai.tumblr.com/post/76224447704/ok-i-am-drooling-myself-and-i-managed-to-make) simply amazing piece of post-shower Levi!


	10. The first confession

Art history was not normally a lecture Eren bothered to attend – partly because it was at ten in the morning on a Monday, partly because it tended to put him into a deep coma but mostly because he shared it with Jean.

The fact that he was sitting in the third row from the front attentively taking notes would probably have been his proudest achievement to date if it wasn’t simply because he found it difficult to sleep when he couldn’t get the sound of Levi growling his name out of his head.

His pen stuttered on his paper and suddenly his messy recount of the life of Van Gogh turned into a scrawl of ink on badly dented paper.

Eren could kind of relate – he was pretty sure that was what a physical copy of his brain waves would have looked like.

(And wow, he was getting deep about a fucking scribble on a piece of college-ruled paper, the situation was reaching beyond critical.)

“You look like you’re about to cry,” Jean muttered next to him and Eren scowled, resisting the urge to stomp on his foot under the desk because it probably wouldn’t accomplish much in the long run except maybe getting the both of them kicked from the lecture.

“I do not,” he whispered back. “And you look like a horse.”

Jean scoffed. “Weak, Jaeger. Seriously though; you never even come to this lecture. What the hell is up?”

One of Jean’s biggest flaws was his ability to be perceptive at exactly the moments the rest of the world needed him to _not_ be. “Nothing’s up,” he hissed, keeping his eyes fixed on the professor. “And why would you even care if it was?”

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Jean hold up his palms in the universal sign of surrender. “God, you’re jumpy today. And to answer your question, I wouldn’t, _obviously_. But I just feel like if you’re about to break down I deserve fair warning because if you start bawling I need to, you know, be somewhere else.”

“I’m not going to start bawling,” Eren gritted through his teeth as he scribbled down a date he was eighty percent certain the professor had just said even though he hadn’t the foggiest clue what it related to. “But if you don’t shut up I might just punch you. Is that fair warning enough?”

“Wow; _rude_. See if I ever try to be a good friend to you again.”

It was silent for a moment except for the steady tapping of keyboards, the scratch of pens and the droning rendition of the symbolism behind Van Gough’s early work. Eren had nearly convinced himself that was the end of it all. Three minutes later Jean flawlessly proved to Eren why optimism was for the weak.

“Seriously, did somebody die?”

“Jean,” Eren warned.

“Did you get dumped?”

“ _Jean_.”

“Ah,” Jean smirked as he spun a pencil loosely between his fingers. “You got dumped, didn’t you?”

Eren closed his eyes and breathed deeply through the urge to stab Jean somewhere that would hurt. The ballpoint probably wouldn’t do too much damage in the short term, but Eren had high hopes for the possibility of ink poisoning.

“I didn’t get dumped,” he managed to get out with minimal stabbing involved. “And nobody died. Are you satisfied? Will you shut up and let me listen to the damn lecture now?” When he opened his eyes Jean was watching him with a cautiously narrowed gaze – if Eren didn’t know any better he might have called it ‘ _concern_ ed _’._ “What?” He snapped.

“And that’s all we have time for today,” the professor called from the front of the room and Eren blinked as he realized the students around him were packing up and heading for the door.

Eren gratefully grabbed his stuff with the intention of making a quick getaway only for Jean’s fingers to shoot out and snatch his textbook before Eren could reach for it. He gaped as Jean got to his feet and stretched, completely nonplussed that he was holding Eren’s eighty-dollar textbook hostage.

“What the fuck, Kirschtein?” Eren snapped, reaching for it only for Jean to step easily out of the row and head for the door.

“I feel like coffee,” he said easily, casting an amused glance over his shoulder. “What is your opinion on coffee?”

“My opinion on coffee is that if you don’t give me back my book I’ll tip it down your damn pants,” Eren spat as he strode after him.

Jean rolled his eyes and thrust the book heavily into Eren’s chest so that he stumbled, shoving open the hall door in front of him. “Good god, you’re such a drama queen. You can have your damn book back if you swear you’re not going to bolt to the other side of campus the minute I take my eye off you.”

Eren narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What are you doing?”

“Coffee, I just said that. Jesus, you deaf or something?”

“You know what I mean,” Eren frowned, but he trailed after him anyway. “Why are you being such a stubborn ass about this?”

Jean sighed as the door swung shut behind them both, running a hand through his blonde-brown hair and turning to face him with an exasperated expression. “ _Because,_ Jaeger, you honestly look like you’re about to go jump off the nearest high-rise and I can only figure if you’re looking this agonized over something there’s a reason you haven’t talked to Armin or Mikasa about it – and because I honestly don’t give two shits about your life and my opinion of you can’t possibly sink any longer, you can get whatever the hell it is off your chest and I can stop feeling like I’ve kicked a damn puppy every time I look at you.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Jean to shove his self-righteous hero complex somewhere the sun didn’t shine before coming to the abrupt realization Jean actually had a _point_. Eren couldn’t tell Armin what had happened because dear god _no_ and Mikasa was not even up for a consideration seeing as how she wasn’t even  aware of Levi’s general existence yet – and wouldn’t be for hopefully as long as Eren could put off that particular conversation.

Jean, for all that they talked like they hated each other, would probably just laugh in his face for five minutes straight and maybe offer up some advice that Eren could either ignore or consider; it wasn’t that bad of a trade.

“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly, moving out of the way of the door as a few more straggling students burst out. “We’ll go for coffee but you’re buying.”

Jean snorted and started off again. “I don’t think so; If I’m going to listen to you tell me all your damn problems I don’t have enough money in this world for the amount of caffeine I’m going to need.”

Yeah, that right there was why they didn’t do this more often.

.

“So, what you’re telling me is you had phone sex with a guy – a guy you’ve never even met, may I add – and once it was all said and done, _you hung-up on him_?”

Eren winced. “Well, when you say it like _that_ it sounds bad.”

Jean leaned back in his seat and raised an eyebrow at him in a truly judgemental expression. “That’s because it _is_ bad. Damn, Eren. You sure know how to win people over, don’t you?”

“What was I meant to do?” Eren snapped, running jittery fingers along the bumps and nicks in the table. “I panicked, okay? I mean, one minute I’m telling him what a prick you are and the next we’re –.”

Jean made a noise like a deeply disturbed whale and flapped a hand. “Okay, I don’t want to hear my name mentioned in anything sexual you do ever again. Understand?”

Eren snorted. “Get off your high horse. You didn’t seem to mind when –.”

“We agreed never to talk about that again,” Jean said fervently just as Marco shuffled over to the table with their coffee. “We swore that was in the past.”

“Are you talking about the time you two made out when drunk?” Marco asked curiously as he set their cups down with a soft _chink_ of china.

Jean looked physically pained. “Why?” He asked as Eren hid a smirk behind his hand even though the memory was kind of traumatic for him too. “Why would you do that to me? You’re meant to be on _my_ side. Why would you bring that up?”

Marco smiled and kissed Jean’s cheek in apology. “Yes, yes. I’m sorry. Now drink your coffee and please no fighting.”

Jean scowled sulkily but didn’t protest and Eren just stared in amazement. “You have to teach me how to do that,” he said.

Marco shrugged modestly. “Sorry, it’s a boyfriend privilege.”

“Okay, yeah. I’ll definitely pass on that one then.”

Jean flipped him off as he took a sip of his drink. “At least I have boyfriend and not a thirty-something guy who lives in Canada that I use for the equivalent of a cross-country booty call.”

Eren choked loudly on his cappuccino and Marco look appropriately embarrassed on his behalf. “ _Jean_ ,” he scolded. “You need to keep your voice down in public.”

The ‘ _or everybody on campus is going to know about Eren’s sex life_ ’ was unspoken but implied. Jean shrugged and smirked, looking about as sorry as your average household cat, and Marco swatted him in the arm which wasn’t going to make a lot of difference to Jean’s shitty attitude, but bless his adorable freckled soul for trying.

“I thought you said you were going to be of some help to me,” Eren said when he finally managed to get his mouthful of coffee down. “So far I’ve been the victim of false advertising. You’re nothing but a gigantic ass.”

Jean smiled unapologetically as Marco sighed, casting a look over to the empty counter before pulling up a chair at their table. “What’s happened?” He asked. “Is this about what Jean just said about your, um, Canadian boyfriend?”

This is why Marco was his favourite – he tried to make shit less awkward even though it was doomed to fail.

“He’s… Levi’s not my boyfriend,” Eren stuttered, pinking as he looked down at his mug. “It’s complicated.”

Jean snorted. “Complicated my ass. Apparently he met this guy online and they’ve been talking for like, what, a month?” He looked at Eren who nodded grudgingly. “And then last night after he bailed out of the party early – thank you very much for that, by the way, you gigantic douche – apparently he went home and they ‘accidently’ had phone sex wherein he hung-up on the poor bastard immediately following.” Jean rolled his eyes at Marco, making exaggerated finger quotes around the word _accidently_. “How the fuck you accidently exchange international dirty talk with someone is beyond me. It’s not like you slip and suddenly you’re exchanging hand jobs or something.”

Marco looked like he was seriously regretting his life choices – as he well should, who the fuck chose to date Jean Kirschtein of their own free will? – and Eren was just hoping that none of what was being loudly broadcast around the coffee shop got back to Armin or worse – _Mikasa_.

“Do you think you might possibly lower your voice to something below a dull roar, Kirschtein?” Eren hissed, kicking him aggressively between the tangle of chair legs and making no effort to hide it from Marco who he was sure was probably on his side by now.

Jean yelped and hit his knee on the underside of the table hard enough to slosh some coffee, rubbing at it and glaring petulantly at Eren. “God, I’m just explaining it to Marco so you don’t have to. I didn’t think you wanted to talk about why you were the world’s biggest asshole twice.”

Eren opened his mouth to argue back but Marco bet him to it. “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” he said firmly, backtracking a bit when he saw both Eren and Jean’s dubious expressions. “I mean, obviously it isn’t an _ideal_ situation, but you weren’t exactly sober when you left the party and, um, what transpired would have frightened anybody. You’d never talked about the possibility of moving beyond friends before, have you?”

Eren shook his head before wincing. “Well, it’s not exactly like we talked about moving beyond friends then either.” Eren might be young and a little naïve at times, but even he knew by now that sex and feelings weren’t always intrinsically linked. “It’s… it’s not something that’s ever come up.”

Jean actually looked alarmingly sympathetic for a moment before something seemed to click in his brain. “Wait, is this the same guy I caught you texting that one time?”

“You mean the time you stole my phone like a giant asshat? Yeah, what of it?”

Jean sighed and looked at him pityingly. “You poor soul. You’ve been crushing on this guy for that long?”

Eren spluttered wordlessly because he was _not_ supposed to be that readable and now Marco too was looking at Eren like was a villain with a particularly tragic backstory – that is to say like he was the scum of the earth still but the reasoning behind his devious actions was slightly clearer. “That’s not – I mean – Oh my god, would you stop looking at me like that?” He groaned as he buried his face in his hands. “You’re literally doing nothing at all to help the situation here.”

Marco patted him soothingly on the shoulder. “I don’t really know all the details here but I’m sure you’re not the only one. From the sounds of it you two have been talking for a while, yes?” Eren made a noise of assent into his hands. “And would you normally talk this much with someone you didn’t even consider romantically?”

“I don’t know, Marco, this is Jaeger…”

“Jean, if you’re only going to sit there and make this worse for Eren I will take drastic action,” Marco said firmly and Jean’s mouth snapped shut faster than Eren had ever seen it.

“But what do I _do_?” He asked. “Oh my god, isn’t there a manual or something? Some kind of proper protocol to follow? An operating procedure? Fuck, I’ll take a vague IKEA instruction sheet.”

“Well,” Marco said, “you could always just ask him how he feels.”

Eren looked at him despairingly. “You don’t know Levi. He… he doesn’t do ‘feelings’. And what would my conversation opener even be? ‘I really enjoyed last night up until I realized what we were doing and I’m really sorry about that whole hanging up on you think, want to do it again sometime?’”

“That’d be a start,” Marco said gently. “Eren, you’ve got to talk to him at least. You can’t avoid the problem forever and just hope it goes away.”

Eren had nineteen years of experience to the contrary, but if his relationship with Levi was hanging in the balance Eren wasn’t stupid enough to risk it just to avoid the possible humiliation that might come with admitting his feelings stretched a bit beyond friendship.

He didn’t want to lose late night phone calls and video-chatting until four am, didn’t want to go back to the time before his phone would wake him up at ten every morning with a slew of incoming text messages. Levi was grouchy and snarked at him a lot and tended to treat Eren like he was ten years younger than he was and his sense of humour was honestly disturbing sometimes – and Eren was so ridiculously into him it was a bit embarrassing.

“Okay,” Eren said, taking a deep breath like it might dispel the way he suddenly felt too lightheaded. “Okay, I’ll talk to him.”

“Good luck,” Marco smiled and Eren tried to smile back.

“And hey,” Jean said, slapping him on the back, “if this doesn’t work out I’m sure there are plenty of other old men on the internet who’d love to have cybersex with you.”

The resounding yelp when Marco pinched him was satisfying in a way Eren couldn’t even begin to explain.  

.

Eren spent the rest of the day psyching himself up for his conversation with Levi. He’d tried brainstorming what he planned on saying but everything he considered made him physically cringe trying to imagine the words coming out his mouth.

He’d have to wing it because if there was one thing Eren Jaeger was good at it was improvising on the spot.

Eren kept one eye on the clock and spent the majority of the rest of the day shifting restlessly around his room, sifting through piles of assignments and readings but never lingering long – he couldn’t focus on anything and the idea of taking out his sketchbook and seeing the hundred different ways he’d rendered Levi’s features across the pages was nearly enough to make him sick with nerves.

Roughly after five in the evening – just past eight Levi’s time – his phone went off and Eren had never scrambled for it so fast in his life.

 **_Received New Text Message: Levi – 5:03  
_ ** _We can pretend nothing happened if you want_

No. That was kind of the exact opposite of what Eren wanted.

Sucking in a deep breath Eren punched out his reply.

_are you free to webcam?_

A minute passed, and then another. Eren was just starting to think this might have been the wrong way to approach the situation – what other fucking way was there, Marco said talk so Eren was _trying_ – when it went off again.

 **_Received New Text Message: Levi – 5:05  
_ ** _Give me a second_

Eren breathed out and dropped his phone so it clattered loudly to the ground, fumbling blindly for his laptop.

 _You can do this_.

Eren settled the computer on his knees and leant back against his bed as he waited for Levi to come online. Barely thirty seconds later and it popped up in the corner of his screen.

In the few seconds it took the link to establish Eren straightened his back, blanked his expression until he could figure out on a scale of 1 – 10 how pissed Levi was and hit call.

Levi looked… he looked as fucking perfect at the last time Eren had seen him, honestly.

“ _Hey_.”

Eren swallowed and tried not to focus too obviously on his mouth. “Hey.”

The call went silent for a moment while Eren tried to figure out what to say, licking his lips absently in a nervous fidget. Levi’s eyes flicked to follow the darting movement of his tongue in a sweep of dark lashes and silver irises that Eren was fairly certain he wasn’t imagining.

Jesus Christ, if it wasn’t hard enough to think before it certainly was _now_.

Eren cleared his throat and Levi’s gaze darted back up to meet his for a split second before he looked away, fixating on something off screen of the camera. “ _I wanted to apologize_ ,” he said after a brief pause, “ _for last night_.”

“Um,” Eren said intelligibly because he couldn’t think up a polite way to tell Levi he shouldn’t be sorry for being responsible for the best orgasm of Eren’s life.

Levi took in a visibly deep breath and continued, not once looking back at Eren. “ _You told me you weren’t drunk but you’re a fucking teenager and I shouldn’t have taken your word for it. I shouldn’t have let the situation get that out of hand knowing it’d probably make you uncomfortable as fuck afterwards. If you don’t want to talk with me for a while, I understand_.”

Okay, so Eren might have fucked this up worse than he thought, but in his defence he was a nineteen year old virgin and he’d basically just listened to the guy whom he was crushing on hard enough to hurt moan his name as he jerked off.

Levi still wasn’t looking at him – and Eren felt an irrational surge of disappointment at not being the focus of all his attention – and he took a moment to consider what a normal person would do to salvage the situation before coming to the abrupt but not surprising conclusion that he and Levi were hardly normal people anyway and thus the laws of logic scarcely applied.

He would do this his own fucking way and it would _work_ even if Eren had to bargain off ten years of his life for success.

“Okay,” he said firmly, and Levi looked up. “Right, before I say anything I need to let you know I am really bad at fixing my fuckups but I’m honestly trying my hardest.” He paused, sucked in some air. “First off, I have been reliably informed hanging-up was a dick move – and you better appreciate the shit I went through for that piece of advice; I had to have coffee with _Jean_ – and I don’t really know how to make the fact I did that better.”

“ _It’s not your fault, I –._ ”

“No,” Eren cut over. “It is my fault. I was… I panicked a bit, okay? And I know that’s not the greatest justification in the world but I had no idea what to say or do to make the situation any less awkward.”

Levi actually smiled – it looked dubious and tired, but he was looking at Eren again. “ _It was kind of awkward_.”

Eren let out a relieved sigh. “Okay, now, having said that, I’ve reached the point where I tell you I’d rather you not be sorry about the whole thing because I’m not.”

Levi raised an eyebrow. “ _You’re not_?”

“Really, really not,” Eren said articulately before rethinking and backpedalling a bit. “I mean, unless you’re sorry about it then – I mean –.”

“ _Eren_ ,” Levi sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair in a way that was frankly too attractive to be legal. “ _If you’re not sorry about it then neither am I. Fuck, I just needed to know I wasn’t taking advantage of you, that I didn’t pressure you into something you didn’t actually want to do_.”

Eren’s ears felt dangerously hot. “You didn’t. That was definitely something I wanted to do.”

Levi actually smirked. “ _It was, huh?_ ”

Eren forced himself to keep his face expressionless as he looked at a point just beyond Levi’s shoulder in the background. “I’d even go so far as to say I probably wouldn’t mind doing it again.” He wasn’t looking at Levi’s face but the pause that followed his words was almost tangible in the silence and Eren counted to ten in his head to stem any premature panic as he continued. “I mean, if you’d be willing to maybe discuss a change of circumstance.”

“ _And what would this change of circumstance involve?_ ” Levi’s voice sounded odd – almost breathless in a way Eren had trouble describing – and the desire to look and see what the hell kind of expression he was wearing was too intense to resist.

His face was blank but his eyes were narrowed in a way that almost suspicious, like he thought Eren might just be playing a rather elaborate practical joke on him. Eren wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but it was a step up from disconnecting on him.

Eren tried to calm the rapid gunfire of his pulse that was making it very difficult to form coherent sentences. He was nineteen – an independent adult. He wasn’t a fucking coward and he could do this. If it came to rejection it would hurt, there was no shame in that, but if he didn’t try he’d never know and that was probably the worst shame of them all.

“I really like you,” Eren admitted in a tumble of words before he could second guess himself into silence. “I really like you a whole lot and I know that a month isn’t exactly a long time, and you live in a different time-zone entirely, and that we haven’t even met, and I _know_ that sex doesn’t always mean what it should mean but… I just really like you and I need you to know that.”

Levi stared at him; lips parted and face blank in what was probably the closest his face ever came to shocked. He was silent for long enough that Eren began to feel physically ill with nerves – _what if he’d just fucked everything up worse than before, what if he’d damaged what they had so bad that there wasn’t any coming back from it –_ but before Eren could say something else, tack some kind of obligatory disclaimer to the end of his confession, Levi stirred. Huffing out a laugh he said: “ _You… you’re really something else, you know_?”

“Uh,” Eren stuttered, because that wasn’t exactly what he was aiming for here. “I’m sorry?”

“ _No, it’s a good thing – I think_.” Levi leant back in his desk chair and the accompanying screech of metal was audible through the speakers. “ _So, Eren Jaeger, can I safely assume you just asked me out_?”

Eren had not thought that far ahead – he hadn’t really considered anything past making sure Levi wasn’t appalled by his general existence – but the way Levi was looking at him with a smirk and his brows raised like he was _challenging_ Eren to back out, to retract his confession and beat a hasty retreat, decided his next words for him.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “This is me asking you out.”

“ _You do realize that I am a thirty-four year old social recluse who has no life outside of work? That I’m an aggressive clean freak who lives over five hours away?_ ”

“I know all of that, don’t be a dick,” Eren said and Levi snorted.

“ _And you’re okay with that? Dating someone with such a list of glowing commendations?_ ”

“I’m okay with anything so long as it’s you,” Eren said and even he was aware of how embarrassingly earnest that sounded as it came out, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it because the instant the words slipped free Levi _smiled_ – that honest to god smile that Eren had only seen once or twice before, the one he was trying so hard to replicate with lead and chalk and charcoal.

Eren’s heart did something funny in his chest again and he was seriously going to have to look into getting a better grip of himself if he planned to wheedle more of those smiles out of Levi. “So,” he said, and he sounded at least three – quite possibly four – times more confident than he really felt. “What about you? Are you okay with dating me?”

“ _Am I okay with dating a fucking nineteen year old brat who can barely function as a human without assistance?_ ” Levi asked as Eren’s heart tripped wildly.

“Uh, yeah. That about sums it up.”

Levi laughed and it sounded so honestly _relieved_ that Eren could barely believe this was happening. “ _Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like an okay deal to me_.”

“Okay,” Eren said around what felt like the fucking Eiffel Tower lodged up his throat.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Levi said back.

“Good,” Eren replied.

“ _Great_ ,” Levi responded.

“Superb,” Eren said.

“ _Jesus Christ, would you wipe that smile off your face you look ridiculous_.”

Eren probably did look ridiculous and Levi was frowning much too hard to be anything short of completely intentional and Eren had an assignment due in tomorrow morning he hadn’t started and he should probably get to work on some more sketches while the image of the soft curl of Levi’s lips and the fondness in his eyes was still fresh – but seeing Levi trying so hard not to look anything short of terribly grumpy, hiding the hint of a smile behind his hand, Eren decided he didn’t much care.

Assignments and sketches and work were for later – right now it was just him, Levi and the soft whistle of their combined breathing.

“Okay,” Eren said again just to see Levi sigh – and he wasn’t disappointed.

“ _You’re such a fucking weirdo_ _and I have no clue what the fucking hell I see in you,_ ” Levi muttered as he closed his eyes and struggled to stop himself smiling.

Eren laughed and tried to act like he believed him for an instance.

(hint: he didn’t.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As some of you may know by now whiteyoukai over on tumblr has drawn an amazingly beautiful piece of art for this story - and I can't even begin to express how gorgeous it is in words. The link for it is now in the chapter nine notes if you're curious and I can't even begin to thank her enough for this. 
> 
> (also I've heard the end of last chapter caused a fair few of you to dream up a continuation for the end of the scene; I hope this lives up to what you all imagined!)


	11. The distraction plan

The next week for Eren was a lot like floating on air.

Normally he spent a great deal of his time in some form of communication with Levi – texting, phone calls, webcamming at ridiculous hours of the morning for both of them – but after successfully graduating their relationship to something of a more romantic nature it felt like there just wasn’t enough time in the day for all the things he wanted to talk to him about.

The funny thing was – for once in his life – his schoolwork wasn’t suffering for it.

It was like he was on a constant high. He spent his day trading lazy texts back and forth with Levi in between attending classes and pretending to do viable research for assignments, his afternoons sketching like a madman and his nights watching the amused curl of Levi’s lips and wishing with a tangible ache he could actually reach out and touch them.

He’d finally submitted his form to Pixis the day after things between he and Levi had become official and his overflow of inspiration hadn’t spluttered to a complete halt the moment he hit the send button which Eren had been secretly – but fucking reasonably – terrified of. Creativity was a funny thing that tended to elude you the moment you were sure it was there and Eren had more than enough experience with dramatic break-ups with his inspiration to be anything short of extremely cautious about the whole thing.

However, whatever gods that be had done nothing to discourage the flow of motivation and Eren was spending increasing amounts of time with his fingers dusted black and smudges on every feasible part of skin he possessed as his final piece edged closer and closer to completion.

To put it rather simply, Eren was happier than he’d been in – quite possibly – _years_.

That was probably why the first words out of Armin’s mouth when he opened his door were: “You look unusually happy; please tell me that’s because you finally asked Levi out and not because the police will be finding Jean’s body in a ditch later tonight.”

“Hello to you too,” Eren scoffed as Armin stepped out of his room and shut the door heavily behind himself, although he wasn’t really all that irritated.

“Yes, yes. Now, corpse or boyfriend; which is it?”

“Jesus,” Eren groaned as Armin stared determinedly up at him with eager blue eyes and his arms folded firmly across his chest. “You can’t wait until we’re at least out of the building before you start your inquisition?”

Armin smothered a smile and gave an exaggerated sigh before tucking his key in his back pocket and setting off down the corridor towards the stairwell. “I don’t see why I should. Whether it be now or in ten minutes I’m going to get the details out of you either way.”

“It’s called being polite, you ass.”

“Eren, you do not get to lecture me on proper social protocol,” Armin laughed as they descended the stairs and pushed open the outside door.

“You make me sound like a thug.”

“You are a thug; a menace to society. Do you know how many fistfights you got into in your final year of high school?”

“Uh.” Eren did not, but he’d wager Armin did. “Not enough to get expelled?”

Armin _tsked_ lightly under his breath and shot Eren a mockingly disapproving glare which made Eren’s smile crack even wider. “A lot, Eren. Do you know the principle actually called me into his office and asked if there was anything I could do about your fighting?”

“He didn’t,” Eren said. “Oh my god, you’re lying to me right now.”

“I assure you it’s nothing but the truth. I told him I’d probably have a better chance of discovering the Holy Grail than getting you to do something you didn’t want to.” Armin shook his head wistfully and dug his hands deeper in his pockets. “You’ve got a stubborn streak a mile wide and an attitude to match.”

“Do I really?” Eren asked a little self-consciously. He was fully aware he was an outspoken person who didn’t shy away from confrontation whether it be physical or otherwise and he wouldn’t change that for the world, but he’d hoped to come off as earnest rather than a jackass.

Armin flicked a small smile at him and bumped their shoulders together even though he was half a good few inches smaller. “I don’t mean that in a bad way, just as a fact. Your passion is only matched by the charisma you don’t even seem to realize you possess. I think you bring out the best and the worst in people around you without meaning to.”

“Thanks, I think.” Eren frowned. “I’ve known you most of my life and I still can’t tell when you’re complimenting or subtly mocking me.”

“Both, Eren. Always both,” Armin grinned sweetly as they crossed the road, heading down the street and away from the campus. “So, what is it you even want to get in town today? I don’t mind coming out with you – especially since you offered to pay for lunch for a change – but you’ve been all but a hermit this week. Any reason why?”

Eren didn’t think the right answer here was ‘ _I’ve been obsessing over my brand new relationship and working on my final piece for art which just so happens to be the object of said relationship, not that I’m really pathetically into him or anything_ ’.

“Um, busy,” he said instead and the glance Armin shot him told him he wasn’t fooling anybody. Deciding the best tactic was probably to return to the previous topic he said hurriedly: “Mikasa mentioned she might be coming home for a week or so soon, although she hasn’t got an exact date, so I thought I should probably get her a present or something.”

“Ah,” Armin nodded sagely. “Trying to get back in her good graces before she sees how terrible of a job you’ve done taking care of yourself?”

“I am a functional adult, thank you,” Eren snapped as they crossed the road onto a busier street. “I don’t know why everybody seems to think I’m incapable of fending for myself.”

“Because this is the second time in two weeks you’ve got a stain on your face and I can tell just by looking that you forgot to brush your hair today. Also, I’m pretty sure you were wearing that shirt yesterday.”

Eren started and scrubbed viciously at his cheek until his wrist came away with a faint smear of charcoal black. A run of fingers through his hair proved that it was most decidedly flat on one side which might have explained a few of the concerned glances he’d been getting.

“You couldn’t have said something before?” Eren hissed, as he tried to comb out some of the mess with desperate rakes of his fingers. “Like, when I showed up at your door looking like I’d slept on the art room floor?”

Armin laughed outright at him as he led the way across a crossing to a near-by café. “I was distracted by the rather ridiculous smile on your face. It was refreshing to see you wearing an expression that wasn’t just that of a brain-dead art student subsisting on too much caffeine and too little sleep.”

“I am a brain-dead art student,” Eren felt the need to remind him as they pushed up the door with a light tinkle of a bell. “And I do exist on too much caffeine and too little sleep.”

Armin gave him a truly long suffering look. “I’m aware. I am so aware it stopped being funny and started being tragic years ago. You’re my best friend Eren, now and forever, but some days I just look at you and think _why_?”

Eren was starting to understand that was probably a common reaction when it came to him.

“Well,” he said shortly and tried his hardest to look consumed in examining the specials board, “maybe if you’d walked past the weird kid in the sandpit fifteen years ago your life would be decidedly less problematic now.”

“I’m sure it would,” Armin laughed as he settled next to Eren in front of the counter, smiling politely at the concerned looking waitress behind the register, “but I’d probably have died from boredom before high school. Besides, you were crying and no self-respecting four year old was going to just walk on by.”

“I was _not_ crying.”

“Eren, you were a child. It doesn’t detract from your thug status to have cried a time or two.”

“Christ, I am not a thug, you little shit. I had sand in my eye or something, okay?”

“Um,” Said the server behind the counter who was looking progressively more and more nervous. “Are you two going to order something or…?”

They did. Well, Armin did because he had the scary intelligent ability to read an entire menu in three seconds flat and sometimes knew Eren better than Eren knew himself. The waitress looked a bit like she was debating fetching her manager and having the both of them kicked out and Eren was not game enough to put that theory to the test by opening his mouth again. He’d been reliably informed speaking was kind of a universally bad idea when it came to himself.

“Alright,” Armin said as they sat down in a booth towards the far rear of the cafe, far out of earshot of the wait staff whom apparently were not a great fan of Eren swearing up a storm at their front counter – family spaces, _honestly_ ; Levi would have disapproved of this censorship immensely – and with just enough privacy for Armin to switch from ‘I’m adorable as hell, look at these cute ass eyes’ to ‘I’m taking no shit from anybody, mark my words’ in the space of a thirty seconds. “I’ve been patient. Really, really patient. Now, did you or did you not enter into a romantic relationship with a thirty-four year old man who lives in Canada?”

“His name is Levi and you know it,” Eren growled, because Armin meant well but it grated to have Levi reduced down to a list of qualities he was aware other people found vastly undesirable. “If you want me to tell you shit you should probably open with a different sentence.”

Armin wrinkled his nose in genuine apology. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. You know I’m not judging you, Levi or your life choices.”

Which was just as well because lately Eren had felt like his whole life had become a Jerry Springer special of ‘Look at your life, look at your choices’ and he wasn’t entirely certain he could have handled that coming from Armin.

“Sorry,” Eren said in return, because he dared anybody not to feel vaguely guilty whenever Armin Arlert apologised for something. “I know you’re not serious, it’s just… I seriously hate how that is the first thing everybody seems to latch onto, you know? That there’s an age gap and a distance and – and it just feels like every time somebody points it out I kind of want to break their nose.

Armin snorted. “Yeah. That sounds like you alright.”

“You told me you’d love me no matter what,” Eren reminded him sombrely.

“Yes, but if you start breaking noses left, right and centre I’m going to have to tell Mikasa and she won’t be particularly pleased.”

“You _never_ let me have any fun,” Eren groaned, sliding down in his seat to pout playfully at Armin before sobering up. “Seriously though, please don’t tell Mikasa about me and Levi.”

“So that’s a definite yes then? You and Levi are now a couple?” Armin smiled in earnest delight. “That’s great, Eren!”

It had never crossed Eren’s mind how good it would feel to have somebody honestly happy for him when it came to this, but to hear Armin so cheerfully congratulate him made something warm bubble up inside him and Eren could barely contain the desire to reach across the table and haul Armin into the biggest bro-hug he was ever likely to receive.

“Thanks, it’s actually really nice to have somebody be happy for me about this shit for once,” he contented himself with saying just as a waitress swooped past and clattered their food down heavily on the table, shooting Eren a warning glance which he interpreted to say he was probably one more cuss from eating his food on the kerb.

He blamed Levi for that. He was clearly an awful influence when it came to language.

Armin fluttered his eyelashes innocently at the waitress and widened his eyes, thanking her for their food and the service with such zeal she relaxed enough to smile back before taking her leave, sending a fond look over her shoulder like Armin was the cutest little thing she’d ever seen this side of a puppy dog parade.

Armin _was_ unnaturally adorable, but he was also a manipulative shit and Eren was constantly amazed that nobody picked up on his tendency to shuffle people around like pieces on a chess board until they were positioned just how he’d like them. Eren supposed it was because Armin used his powers for the greater good, but if he ever decided he wanted to demolish armies or reign over countries they were probably all doomed.

“What?” Armin asked and Eren realized he’d kind of just been staring blankly at him for a moment.

Eren shook his head dazedly. “Nothing, nothing. It’s just sometimes I forget how terrifying you grew up to be.”

Armin gave him an odd look but turned his attention back to his plate without questioning further. “So, is this another reason why you thought you should butter Mikasa up for her visit?”

Eren grimaced and sunk lower in his seat, picking moodily at his food. “I’m not telling Mikasa until it becomes necessary to.”

Armin raised an eyebrow. “And when would that be?”

“Preferably for as long as I could put it off. I’m hoping six or seven years, maybe.”

“So you’re planning on still being with Levi in six or seven years?” Armin grinned around his fork.

“What? That’s not what I mean, oh my god. Stop taking everything I say out of context!” Eren spluttered.

“So you _don’t_ plan on still being with Levi in six or seven years?” Armin asked innocently.

Eren didn’t really know a way around that question that didn’t result in melting into a horrible pile of mortified embarrassment. Things with Levi were still so new and they hadn’t even met and the last thing Eren wanted to do was think too far ahead and use big words like ‘forever’ and ‘always’ when he didn’t even know what it felt like to run his fingers through Levi’s hair. He’d been carefully avoiding thinking of anything in the long-term because he didn’t know how he’d cope if he let himself admit all the things he wanted from this relationship only to have it crumble around him.

“Can we not talk about this right now?” He asked, staring fixatedly at the laminated table top. “Right now I can’t… I can’t let myself expect too much, you know? Not when everything is still new. If I get carried away I’m going to fuck it up.”

It was silent for a moment but for the sound of Armin gently setting his cutlery down. “I think it’ll take more than you being your typically intense self to fuck it up, Eren. Levi seems to really like you. I mean, if he’s anything like you’ve described he wouldn’t have stuck around for so long if he was anything but completely head over heels for you.”

“Maybe,” Eren answered noncommittally and without any real enthusiasm.

Armin sighed but seemed to sense that Eren was honestly done with the topic. “Alright, but I still think you’re going to need to talk to Mikasa sooner than possibly never. If she finds out from somebody else you might not survive the fallout.”

Eren winced. “I’m just not going to think about it right now. Later, okay?”

Armin eyed him dubiously, like he didn’t believe this was a thing Eren planned on ever giving thought.

Eren silently agreed.

.

Bribing Armin to come shopping with him turned out to be possibly one of the best choices of Eren’s recent life.

“This,” he said firmly as he pressed a charm bracelet into Eren’s palm. “Definitely this.”

“Are you sure?” He asked, not because he didn’t know what Mikasa liked and didn’t like, but because Armin was knowledgeable in all things and the closest Eren had ever come to wearing jewellery was a period in high school where he’d lost a bet and pierced his ear.

Armin nodded seriously. “I’m sure. You don’t want to get her anything to gaudy, right? This way she can add to it as she likes. Less pressure on everybody involved.”

That sounded reasonable enough and Eren shuffled over to the counter while Armin looked casually around the store as the sleepy old lady behind the counter rung up Eren’s purchase. Just as Eren was passing his card over his phone went off.

“Hello?” He said as he fumbled one handed to answer.

“ _Eren_ ,” Mikasa greeted promptly. “ _I’ve got dates and I’ve booked my flights. I’ll be back two weeks from now._ ”

“That’s great,” he grinned, mouthing her name when Armin glanced over curiously. “How long will you be back?”

“ _A week. I’ve got a tournament coming up soon, so it was the most time I could get_.” She sounded honestly apologetic, mad in a way that Eren was fully aware had nothing to do with him.

“Mikasa,” Eren said as he slipped his card back into his wallet and accepted the proffered bag from the cashier. “A week is more than enough time. You’ll be cutting it close with your tournament as it is.”

“ _I’m sure the tournament will be fine; something I’m not sure you will be if I leave you without supervision any longer_.”

“Mikasa,” Eren snapped.

“ _I know, I know. You’re not a child, stop treating you like a kid._ ” He could hear her smiling – Mikasa’s restrained version of a smile anyway – down the line. “ _Are you in your room at the moment or should I call back later_?”

“Um,” Eren answered as he and Armin left the store. “Probably later. I’m out at the moment.”

“ _You’re buying me a welcome home present in order to distract me from something, aren’t you_?” She asked without missing a beat and Eren winced.

“No – I mean, yes, I’m buying you a present, but it’s not to distract you from something.” Next to him Armin was laughing like the unsympathetic bastard he was.

“ _Sure_ ,” she said without meaning it in the slightest.

Armin was still laughing and the pair of them were getting strange looks as they walked.

“I hate both of you,” Eren said aloud. “I’m hanging up now and I’m not picking up again until you’re done ganging up on me without even speaking.” He could hear Mikasa laughing at him as he hung-up, eerily in time with Armin’s own giggles.

“So,” Armin said as Eren slipped his phone back in his pocket. “The distracting Mikasa from Levi plan seems to have gone off without a hitch. She doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“I really hate you,” Eren repeated.

“No, you really don’t,” Armin said.

He really didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware I'm a lot later updating than I normally am, and I am really quite sorry about this. This chapter gave me a lot of trouble to write, mostly for the fact that nothing terribly exciting happens in it but it was necessary to insert it regardless. 
> 
> Thank you to all the people who have left me amazing comments and to those who have sent me messages on tumblr or left posts about this fic in it's tag over there as well.


	12. The business trip inception

“You’ve been looking slightly less murderous than usual lately,” Hanji remarked first thing Monday morning when Levi stepped into the office. “It’s almost like something good must have happened.”

“You’re imagining things,” Levi said shortly as he dropped a stack of files on his desk.

“No, I don’t think I am.” Hanji looked at him with a frankly unnerving expression, like she was itching to open him up and see what was going on in his brain. “At first I put it down to you having a day off but it’s been a week now and you’re still chipper.”

“Chipper?” Levi repeated, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “I’ve been called a lot of things but I don’t think chipper is one of them. Get your head checked.”

Hanji laughed like Levi had told a particularly good joke.

It’d been a week since Eren had – babbling and desperately earnest in a way that was sickeningly endearing – asked him out. Levi had the vague impression that the whole fiasco had been remarkably unplanned on Eren’s end and, likewise, the ‘yes’ that been his answer had been equally spur of the moment.

He was dating a nineteen year old college kid who lived in California. Levi had no clue how this was his life now.

“Will you piss off already?” He grouched as he sat down at his desk and Hanji circled around to lean heavily on the edge like she belonged there. “I could have sworn Erwin kept you employed for something other than bothering the fucking hell out of me.”

“Nope,” She said, popping the word loudly as she waggled her eyebrows down at him. “You’re mistaken. My calling in life is to see how quickly I can get you to consider murder as a viable solution to all your problems.”

“I’m considering it now,” Levi muttered darkly as he spun around to boot up his desktop computer.

“If you won’t tell me I’m going to guess,” Hanji warned.

“Jesus Christ, you’re like a fucking two year old. Eren and I are going out, okay? Does that satisfy your curiosity? Will you get off my back now, you old hag?”

“Younger than you,” Hanji said automatically before letting out a positively unearthly squeal of delight that caused one of the new interns walking by Levi’s office to stumble in fright and cast a concerned glance through the door.

“Hanji!” Levi winced.

“Sorry,” she said, not looking sorry in the least as she beamed wildly and clapped her hands together. “I knew it was only a matter of time with the way you two gossip at each other like a pair of old ladies.”

Levi was deeply offended. “We do not gossip, you piece of shit. We talk.”

Hanji waved one hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. _Details_. When? How? Oh my god, _tell me everything!_ ”

If Levi didn’t know that withholding information would probably result in non-step pestering he would have put his foot down. As it was Levi actually had work to do – unlike somebody – and sometimes the quickest way to get rid of Hanji was just to give her what she wanted.

“Last Monday. We talked and things were said.”

“What _kind_ of things, Levi?” Hanji looked pained and intrigued at once. “You can’t tell a story to save your life, I swear.”

“There’s no story to tell,” he snapped, rubbing absently at his temple because if anybody could incite a migraine with their presence alone it was definitely Hanji. “He said he liked me, I said I liked him, we agreed to switch from being friends to a couple. It was all very average and normal and will you _please_ go the fuck away now?”

Hanji looked disappointed in him but she dutifully shuffled her butt off the edge of the desk. “Fine, fine. You’re such a killjoy,” she sighed. “Well, congratulations at any rate. Tell Eren I look forward to meeting my best friend’s boy toy soon.”

“I haven’t even met him yet,” Levi growled, and the thing he was feeling definitely wasn’t something as childish as jealousy. “And like fuck am I letting you near him without proper warning. You’d tear the kid in two. I was hoping our relationship would at least end on terms that weren’t death by your stupidity.”

“Don’t be silly,” Hanji chided. “It’s true love. Your relationship won’t end at all.”

“You know I don’t believe in that shit,” Levi reminded her sourly.

“Well tough, you better start. You’re not getting out of this so easy.”

Levi sighed. “Get out of here, will you?”

She did but not before Levi had to pitch a stapler at her, although he still considered it a victory.

He counted his wins where he could.

.

At about one Levi took his lunchbreak and stepped out of the office. Glancing down at his phone he figured it must be just past ten in the morning for Eren which meant the lazy shit was probably still in bed. Levi smirked and leant against the brick wall behind him as he hit call.

“ _H’llo_?” Eren slurred after a considerable period of ringing.

“Rise and shine, dipshit,” Levi said cheerfully. “Get your ass out of bed.”

Eren made a garbled noise that might have been a yawn. “ _I don’t even have anything important on today. Why are you so cruel to me_?”

“That’s life. Don’t be a princess about it. Don’t you have a paper due tomorrow or something?” The sound Eren made in response made Levi bite at his lip to smother a grin. He was standing right where anybody could stick their head out of the door and see him; he had a reputation to maintain.

“ _It could have waited an hour or five_ ,” Eren moaned, but Levi could hear the faint rustle of blankets being pushed back as Eren climbed out of bed. “ _What time is it anyway_?”

“About one,” Levi said.

“ _In the afternoon?_ ” Eren screeched in flat-out panic, the exclamation shortly followed by a very loud thump like Eren had just tangled his feet in his covers – _again_ , Levi swore the kid had more accidents than the combined graduating class of a frat house – and fell heavily to the floor.

“Relax,” Levi sighed, rolling his eyes even though Eren couldn’t see it. “It’s one over here. It should be about ten over there.”

Eren made a sound that could have either been pained relief or accusation. Levi was a bit fuzzy on which. “ _You did that on purpose_.”

Levi might have. “You’re being ridiculous. Don’t be such a fucking paranoid shit. Besides, it woke you up, didn’t it?” The door rattled behind him and Levi craned his neck to peer over his shoulder.

“Erwin wants you in his office,” Hanji said from where she was peering through a crack in the door, looking much too serious to be anything but rehearsed. “It sounded urgent.”

“Alright, give me a second.”

“ _Are you talking to someone?_ ” Eren asked at the same time that the expression on Hanji’s face switched from deliberately morbid to sheer delight and she blurted: “Is that Eren? Can I talk to him?”

“No,” Levi said to the both of them, ignoring the impatient whine Hanji made. “I’ve got to go; I’ll talk to you after work. Do your assignment.”

“ _You’re not the boss of me_ ,” Eren joked. “ _Alright, have a good day and talk to you soon._ ”

Levi hung-up and slipped his phone into his back pocket before mounting the steps outside the office and shouldering his way past a petulantly pouting Haji back inside. “What is it Erwin wants? It better be important.”

“It wouldn’t have hurt to just let me have one teensy-weensy conversation with him. I wouldn’t have even said anything incriminating. Like the fact you cuddle a lot when you’re asleep.”

“ _Hanji_ ,” Levi sighed. “What does Erwin want? Also, I do not you fucking liar.”

“You do too – and I can’t say. Important business stuff. We’ll discuss it in his office.”

Levi raised an eyebrow at Hanji but the only allowance she made was to fix her face back into a deadly serious mask that was a lot like the expression she wore to meeting only with a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth that told Levi he shouldn’t take anything that came out of her mouth from here on out seriously.

“I work with actual children, I swear,” Levi muttered as he turned down the hall and pushed Erwin’s door open.

“Ah, Levi,” Erwin said from behind his desk, looking considerably more at ease than Hanji’s obvious attempts at seriousness. “You’ve got a minute?”

“If it’s quick,” Levi said as he swung himself down into the chair across from him. “I have a lot of things I need to get organized about the merger.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,” Erwin said as Hanji settled herself on the edge of his desk like she was prone to doing.

“If this is about the transfer list, I’m –.”

“No, actually,” Erwin cut in, leaning forward and folding his hands seriously in front of him as he peered up at Levi. “This isn’t about anything like that.”

Levi frowned. “Okay?”

“We’ve got a task for you,” Hanji said. “Top secret. Only you can do it.”

“Hanji,” Erwin said.

“Okay, not top secret but only you can do it,” Hanji corrected. “Serious, important stuff.”

“I need somebody to go down to California for a few days to make sure everything’s running smoothly at that end.” Erwin gave him a sever look. “It’s got to be somebody I can trust. How long would you say it’d take, Hanji? A week?”

“Oh, I’d say ten days at the _least_. Give him time to settle in and get a real feel for what’s going on with the merger company. Don’t want to rush things.” Hanji hummed and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Should probably make sure he’s really comfortable. Get that old brain working.”

“Absolutely,” Erwin agreed. “The company will pay for everything, naturally. Keep you focused on where your attention should really be.”

Things were going perfectly fine at the opposite end of the merger. Levi had been working nights and days to make sure of that. Nothing was hitching, nothing was catching – the whole thing was working like a well-oiled machine.

Levi had no illusions about what was going on here.

“And when would I be expected to leave on this business trip, exactly?” He asked, leaning back in his seat and trying to calm the steady thump of his heart, feeling vaguely annoyed at himself for the unstoppable excitement thrumming through him that made him feel like a fucking middle school girl.

“This coming Sunday would probably be best,” Erwin pondered, unfolding his hands to tap his fingers against the desk in consideration. “Plenty of preparation time for the trip.”

A week. One single week and Levi could meet Eren.

“Sounds perfect,” Levi managed to get out although his mouth felt dry and his throat oddly blocked like he was coming down with something.

“All this is strictly business of course,” Hanji said, pretending to examine her nails. “There’s no way this would ever be an attempt by your two oldest friends to try and make sure you’re happy for once in your life.”

“Right,” Levi agreed. “That would be fucking ridiculous.”

“Just on record though, if it _was_ an attempt by your two oldest friends to make sure you’re happy for once – and it’s not – it was totally Erwin’s idea so you should probably be him a really swank Christmas present this year,” Hanji smiled.

“Alternatively such a thing might have merely been a wise investment to prevent one of my assets from cracking under pressure and potentially going on a murder spree throughout the office.” Erwin shrugged. “This is all purely hypothetical though.”

Hanji whacked him lightly on the arm. “Just admit it; you’re getting soft in your old age.”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Erwin wondered aloud.

Hanji sighed as she slid off the desk and headed for the door. “Why is everybody always asking me that?”

“Seriously though,” Levi said as the door swung shut behind Hanji, “what’s the catch?”

Erwin raised a sizeable brow at him and relaxed back in his office chair. “No catch, Levi. I do honestly expect you to do some work while you’re down there, but try to take it easy.”

“That’s it? No asking for overtime? No asking if I’ll come up with a new paperwork system? Nothing? That’s not like you, excuse the fuck out of me if I’m having a hard time believing this is a benevolent gesture on your part.”

Erwin sighed. “You’re always quite dramatic. Consider this breaking even. You’ve been working an overabundance of hours lately and even I have a conscience. Besides, I might be your boss but I’m foremost your friend.”

And yes, that _was_ guilt Levi was suddenly feeling. “I didn’t mean –.”

Erwin held up a hand. “It’s alright, I understood perfectly well what you did and didn’t mean. I’ve known you for long enough that I’m able to decipher at least that much.”

Levi was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”

Erwin’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile but as close to it as Erwin allowed himself to get when he was in the office. “You’re welcome. Now, I’m recommending you take the rest of the day off because I imagine you’re really quite eager to let Eren know of your impending trip.”

“I can –.” Levi started awkwardly, but Erwin once again cut him off.

“It’s fine. Go, I’ve got it covered here.” Erwin waved a hand and Levi considered himself dismissed.

.

“ _Seriously?_ ” Eren grinned, looking positively ecstatic even though his internet connection was still quite shoddy from the rewiring going on in his dorm. “ _One week? You’ll be down here that soon? That’s amazing, Levi!_ ”

“Don’t go getting all mushy on me,” he said. “It’s only for a week and a bit. It’s not like I’m moving down there and asking for your hand in marriage.”

“ _I know, I know, but I can’t help it. You have no idea how long I’ve just wanted to be able to see you some place that didn’t run the risk of dropping out if I nudged my laptop too far to the left_.”

“You really should look at getting that fixed,” Levi said even though it wasn’t really the point. “And I think I might have some kind of idea what you’ve been going through unless you’ve actually been in a relationship with a fucking brick wall this past week.” Eren smile was positively giddy. “What?” Levi snapped.

“ _Sorry_ , _sorry. It’s just… I like hearing you say that_.”

“What?”

“ _That we’re in a relationship_.” Eren’s cheeks pinked and he scruffed a hand through his hair. “ _Sorry, it’s stupid, I know_.”

“No it’s… I like saying it.” Levi winced. “Jesus fucking Christ – you make me say the stupidest shit sometimes.”

Eren laughed. “ _You say it yourself_.”

“Don’t you act all innocent and coy on me, I – what?” Eren’s expression had gone from happy to immensely concerned in all of a second.

“ _No, it’s – I just remembered_.” Eren winced sheepishly. “ _Uh, a few of the days you’re going to be here overlap with Mikasa’s visit_.”

Levi’s heart plummeted. “Oh. No, I get it. If your sister’s visiting you should spend your time with her.”

“ _No, that’s not what I meant. Jesus, I have a talent for putting my foot in my mouth. I just meant… I don’t even know what I meant. I want to spend the time with you. Mikasa will understand. It’s just – she doesn’t – I haven’t –.”_

Levi finally caught on and he could have laughed at Eren if his pain wasn’t so obvious. “She doesn’t know you’re dating a man fifteen years older than you?”

“ _You don’t understand. My sister is seriously overprotective._ ” Eren sounded so desperately pitiful. “ _She once broke somebody’s arm in middle school because they shoved me into a locker._ ”

“Eren, your once told me you gave a kid a concussion for calling Armin a faggot.”

“ _Okay, that’s different entirely. That’s not an overreaction_.” Seeing Levi’s dubious expression he corrected himself. “ _Well, it’s_ hardly _an overreaction. If Mikasa had been there she probably would have gone for his throat. Nobody would have escaped with only a trip to the nurse’s office and detention for a week. There would have been a coroner and a police investigation and a life sentence for murder_.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Levi sighed, rolling his eyes and talking over the distressed noise Eren made at the other end of the webcam. “Look, if you don’t want to introduce me to her you don’t have to. God knows I’ve never been one for the whole ‘meet the family’ shit.”

“ _No_ ,” Eren said, suddenly determined like somebody had thrown a switch. “ _Armin’s right_.”

“What the fuck does Armin have to do with anything?” Levi asked but Eren didn’t even seem to realize he’d spoken.

“ _I have to tell Mikasa eventually anyway. Admittedly my initial plan was just to put if off for as long as possible, but if this is how it’s got to be then that’s it_.”

“Eren,” Levi said, “this isn’t a lifetime movie. Cut the drama. You don’t have to do shit until you’re ready.”

Eren took in a visibly deep breath. “ _Sorry, it’s just… I’ve told you before about my parents, right?”_

“That your mother passed away when you were eleven and your dad’s an asshole that spends so much time gallivanting overseas he barely remembers you exist?” Levi had heard enough about Eren’s pathetic excuse for a father to fuel the fires of his rage from now until he died.

“ _Yeah. After mom died and my dad started coming home less and less Mikasa really tried hard to fill my mother’s shoes. Mikasa really prioritises family above all else and I’m okay with letting her baby me mostly because it makes her happy. But you’ve got to understand; if Mikasa thinks you’re a threat to me you’re not getting out unscathed_.” Eren smiled apologetically. “ _I love Mikasa but she can be a bit… intense_.”

“So it runs in the family then,” Levi quipped. “Listen Eren, I think I’m more than prepared to deal with your psychotic sister.”

Eren looked doubtful. “ _If you say so.”_

“I do. Now, can we talk about something else other than your sister because I’m going to be busy all of tomorrow and I’d rather not waste what little time we have tonight on this.”

Eren smirked in that way Levi just _knew_ he was fully away made Levi a little breathless. “ _Why? What else did you have in mind for tonight?_ ”

“Oh, you know, nothing interesting,” Levi said as he sorted through his odds of turning this into webcam sex.

“ _Well,”_ Eren said, “ _if you don’t have any suggestions I’m sure I can think of something.”_

“I’m all ears,” Levi breathed.

“ _Well, for starters you should –.”_ A tinny ringing sounded suddenly enough for Levi to start violently. “ _Shit, shit. I can’t believe that – holy fuck. I’m sorry, that’s my phone – just let me –._ ”

“It’s okay,” Levi said, taking a deep breath and tamping down on the rising frustration he was feeling. “Answer it. It’s getting late anyway.”

“ _Sorry_ ,” Eren said again, and Levi’s only saving grace was that Eren looked as exasperated as he felt. “ _I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Go and get some rest_.”

“Yeah, yeah. Night.”

The screen went dark as Eren hung-up and Levi leant heavily backwards in his chair, running irritated fingers through his hair.

One week. One week and he was going to actually be near enough to kiss Eren and touch him and he wouldn’t have to be content with late night video chats where something always managed to get in the way. It would just be him and Eren and seeing what Eren’s lips tasted like, what his skin felt like beneath Levi’s fingers, the noises he made when –

Levi groaned and buried his face in his hands.

It was going to be a long week.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We past 1000 kudos! When I started this story I never would have thought that would be a milestone I'd get to see. Thank you - as always - to every single person reading this. 
> 
> If you follow me on tumblr or have been in the tag for this story recently - fic: you have been connected - you might have seen the post I made about writing a small Armin aside to celebrate passing 1000 kudos. It would essentially be a recount from Armin's POV focusing on his friendship with Eren and his perspective on Eren and Levi's relationship. If you guys would be interested in reading this I'd be more than happy to write it.


	13. The late night escapade

Eren wasn’t usually given to fits of insomnia. Sure, his sleeping schedule tended to lean towards the erratic – sometimes sleeping away a whole afternoon and sometimes forgetting to go to bed at all – but overall it wasn’t often that Eren found sleep _eluding_ him like a shitty ex-boyfriend who didn’t want to return your Nirvana CDs.  

A door slammed somewhere down the hall and Eren groaned, rolling over onto his side and ignoring the way the covers constricted uncomfortably around his legs.

That being said, he also wasn’t completely impervious to outside influence. It was Thursday – as in only a handful of days left before he’d see Levi for the first time without two screens and a few thousand miles between them. For the first time Levi would be close enough to _touch_ – close enough for Eren to feel his skin warm and soft beneath his fingers.

He wondered what it’d feel like to have Levi’s fingers slot comfortably in-between his own, to feel the rough brush of his palm against his and hear the soothing roll and hitch of his voice without the background hum of static.

Someone in the next room over coughed loudly and Eren sighed, opening his eyes and fumbling with nerve-jittered hands for the lamp beside his bed, squinting against the onslaught of pale orange that cast long shadows against the walls.

Sleep wasn’t happening. Not right now with the deep rolling in Eren’s stomach that made it impossible to close his eyes for any feasible length of time. What he needed was a moment out of his room, some fresh air to calm the steady thump of his heart that was pumping adrenaline through him with every passing moment.

The floorboards were chilly beneath his feet so Eren snagged a jumper to tug on over his flimsy shirt even though there was a ridiculously high chance it clashed horribly with his pyjama bottoms. He couldn’t muster the energy to care. It was four in the morning and he seriously doubted anybody up wandering around the dorms was going to judge him for looking like a sleep deprived zombie with colour coordination issues.

His door shut heavily behind him and he yawned loudly as he bypassed the bathroom and headed out into the garden courtyard, veering towards the rec centre across from the gathering of smoke-smelling benches.

Pushing the door open he heard a sound like creaking metal and badly muffled laughter and was instantly concerned.

“ _Fuck_ , Connie, that’s my foot.”

“Sorry, sorry. I can’t quite reach.”

“What do you want me to about it? I’m twice your size.”

“Guys, I don’t think we should be doing this,” someone whispered plaintively as Eren rounded the corner of the common room and peered curiously over at the gathering of people huddled around the vending machine nestled just out of immediate sight.

“What are you doing?” He asked the crowd of three who jumped guilty.

“Eren,” Connie grinned, relaxing into his crouch. “What are you doing up this late? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”  Eren might have been able to take him slightly more seriously if his arm wasn’t wedged up to the elbow in the vending machine, fingers wriggling desperately next to a crinkled corner of a pack of chips.

“And shouldn’t you be paying a small fortune for all that?” Eren said in amusement as he eyed the sizable stack of packets nestled protectively in Reiner’s arms. He flicked his gaze to Berthold who predictably looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there.

“Here,” Reiner said, tossing Eren a package of chocolate. “You’re an accomplice now.”

“Damn it,” Eren sighed as he sunk to ground next to him and ripped the pack open with his teeth. “I suppose there’s nothing for it but to live a life of crime now.”

“I tried to stop them,” Berthold admitted as he fidgeted nervously. “But, well…”

“It’s okay,” Eren said, patting him comfortingly on the shoulder. “I understand.”

“Oh, shut up and help me,” Connie grumbled. “I think my arm might be stuck.”

Eren shrugged and jammed a Snickers in his mouth. “Sorry, but you brought this on yourself.”

“I’ve got you Connie,” Reiner grinned, dumping his food into Berthold’s lap – who vaguely horrified at being incriminated in this heist – and leaning forward to help Connie wrestle his arm out from where it was painfully wedged.

“I’m going to be black and blue for a week,” Connie winced once they managed to pop his arm free, rolling his shoulder to ease what was doubtlessly a very painful cramp. “I’m going over to Sasha’s tomorrow, how am I going to explain this?”

“I think she’ll understand,” Eren snorted as he wiped his fingers clean on the knees of his pants. “Just tell her it was for the food. Speaking of, is there a special occasion I don’t know about or is this a regular thing you guys do? Just sneak into the common room at night and make off with the loot?”

“That’s sensitive information,” Reiner said. “Can’t just go passing it out like that.” Eren raised an eyebrow and Reiner snickered for a moment before sobering up. “It’s Connie and Sasha’s three years tomorrow. We’re throwing him a party.”

“In your pyjamas at four in the morning; sitting in the middle of the common room with a heap of stolen chocolate?” Eren asked. “Classy.”

“Piss off,” Connie grunted around a mouthful of Gummi Bears. “At least I’ve got a relationship.”

Eren grinned around a second mouthful of chocolate. “Uh, yeah, about that…”

Connie choked on his food and Reiner thudded him heavily on his back until he managed to cough desperately into his hands. “You’re joking,” Connie wheezed, pounding his fist against his ribcage. “When the hell did that happen?”

“Only about a week and a half ago – technically,” Eren added, because he was pretty sure by this point he and Levi had started their mutually unrequited pining long before anything became official.

“And you never thought to mention?” Reiner asked. “Berthold and I live just down the corridor. We see you pretty much every morning.”

“It never came up,” Eren shrugged, feeling slightly self-conscious now that the topic had actually been dragged to the centre of the conversation. “It’s not a big deal.”

Reiner snorted and even Berthold hid a sardonic smile behind a poorly disguised cough. “Eren,” Reiner said, “the last time you even came remotely close to dating anybody was when you and Jean –.”

“That has already been brought up too many times already,” Eren said firmly, shutting down that particular line of conversation because yes, it was funny to remind Jean of it from time to time, but Eren needed some distance from it now and then or he was never going to stop cringing.

“Seriously though,” Connie said just as the sound of the door squeaking open rattled loudly in the early morning air, “who is it? Do we know him?”

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Jean said as he appeared around the corner, Marco in tow, “what did I miss?”

“Jesus Christ, did you invite everybody to this little pyjama party of yours?” Eren asked, half impressed, half irritated.

Reiner shrugged nonplussed and tossed Jean a packet of chips as he sunk down to sit cross-legged to Berthold’s left. “Well, maybe if you actually checked your phone now and then you wouldn’t feel so left out.”

“I’ve been busy,” Eren protested and Jean snorted.

“I bet you have. Busy with a certain somebody named Levi anyway.”

“So his name is Levi,” Connie said giddily.

Eren felt more than slightly cornered at this point, glancing up at Marco for support whom was hovering apologetically behind him like he was only there to provide adult supervision to the mess that was supposedly Eren’s friends.

“Guys,” Marco said, “don’t hound him.”

“No, fuck that shit,” Jean said and Connie leaned forward eagerly. “You won’t believe the gossip I have for you.”

“First off, that was shared in confidence Kirschtein and if you say anything I’ll break every bone in your body. Secondly, are you a bunch of fucking twelve year old girls or something? You do realize you’re essentially sitting around in your pyjamas at four in the morning talking about boys.”

“I will always be young at heart,” Connie garbled wistfully through a full mouth. “You’ll never take that away from me. Now _spill;_ who is this Levi guy and how did you meet?”

“None of your business,” Eren said at the same time Jean smirked unpleasantly and said: “ _Omegle_.”

The following collective of squeals was immensely concerning given that Eren was supposedly surrounded by adult males.

“ _Omegle_?” Connie repeated, sounding both scandalized and delighted at once like Eren had maybe banged a hot professor or something. “You met your boyfriend on Omegle? I don’t even know what to say to that.”

Reiner clapped him heartily on the back so that Eren nearly toppled into Berthold’s lap. “I never would have that you were into that kind of thing. At least tell me you know what he looks like.”

“Things happened, okay? Yes, I met him on Omegle, but we were talking long before we decided to start dating.” Eren threw a glare at Jean who looked completely unrepentant. “And yes, I know what he looks like. The only thing we haven’t done is meet in person and that’s only because he lives in Toronto.”

“Who still uses Omegle?” Connie pondered aloud like it had any bearings on the current conversation at all.

“Jaeger, apparently,” Jean smirked. “If anybody around here is a twelve year old girl it’s him.”

“I swear to God Jean, there is no limit to the amount of times I am capable of breaking you nose. Just try me and find out.”

“You snagged yourself a Canadian boyfriend?” Reiner asked, sounding vaguely impressed.

“Do you have a photo?” Connie asked a little too eagerly.

Eren flushed about the ears and tried not to think about the several he most certainly did have saved in an obscure folder on his phone. “No, I’m not showing you a photo of my boyfriend. If you’re that curious use your damn imagination.”

“Come on,” Connie wheedled. “Don’t be stingy.”

“Why does it matter to you anyway? I thought you were the token straight guy of the group,” Eren snapped a little irritably and Reiner laughed uproariously – much too loud for a time so early in the morning when they were sitting around in boxers and singlets with stolen candy bars.

“We should head back,” Berthold cut in, looking typically sweaty and nervous as he shifted about uncomfortably. “We’re making too much noise. Somebody is going to come see what all the fuss is about.”

“Excellent,” Reiner said. “The more the merrier.”

“I don’t think that’s quite how this works,” Marco said as he reached down to haul Jean back up to his feet.

“But we just got here,” Jean all but pouted. “I’m not done making fun of Jaeger yet.”

“You can make fun of Eren later,” Marco promised soothingly.

“Hey,” Eren barked and Marco smiled ruefully at him.

“Urg, _fine_.” Jean rolled his eyes dramatically. “I hope you’re aware of the things I do for you.”

“Can you guys please go be adorable somewhere else?” Eren suggested. “You’re making the rest of us feel inferior.”

“Can it, bitch,” Jean said as he slipped his hand into Marco’s back pocket.

“ _You_ can it, horse face.”

“Guys,” Berthold said again. “I think I hear somebody coming.”

Indeed, there were the hushed but unmistakably grouchy tones of an RA or two crossing the courtyard outside towards the rec centre.

“ _Fuck_. Abort mission, fucking _abort mission!_ ” Connie yelped and the lot of them were off like a particularly distressed band of cats trying to re-enact a badly timed getaway chase scene, banging into each other and hissing out cusses as they slipped out the nearest exit and took the long way back to the rooms.

“This is all your fault,” Eren huffed once he was reasonably sure they were out of hearing range of anybody who might even remotely resemble an authority figure (Marco aside.)

“Are you kidding me,” Connie hissed, bending down to grab his knees as he gasped for breath. “If anybody is to blame its Reiner for his inability to laugh without sounding like a foghorn.”

Reiner shrugged good-naturally and scratched at the back of his neck. “Sorry the party got cut short Connie.”

“We had to leave the food behind, that’s the most devastating part,” Connie agreed.

“Forget the food, we’re lucky we didn’t get busted stealing from the vending machine,” Jean grumbled. “Fuck, I’m too attractive to go to prison. They’ll eat me alive.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a drama queen,” Eren marvelled and Jean shot him a nasty look.

“Not to go all Hermione Granger on your asses, but I think that’s enough adventure for one night,” Connie sighed as he straightened up. “Thanks for the party guys, but I’m going to bed. It starts with taking some candy from a vending machine but the next thing you know we’ll be running an inner circle trade on expensive bootleg hams.”

“Pretty sure that’s not a thing,” Eren said.

“Berthold and I are probably going to turn in too,” Reiner grunted, which was his subtle way of saying Berthold looked like he might faint from all the excitement if he didn’t get him into a bed soon. “Let’s call it a night.”

The adrenaline of the hectic scattering had faded enough that Eren was feeling just the right kind of pleasantly woozy. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

They disbanded, wafting down hallways and towards staircases.

Eren was just mounting the first lot of steps when Jean called out after him: “Oh, and Jaeger, that jumper really doesn’t go with those pyjama pants. You look like a sleep deprived zombie with colour coordination issues.

Fucking Jean.

.

Eren’s Thursday progressed remarkably well after that.

He attended his classes and even managed to bang out a few hundred words for an assignment or two before curling up on his bed with a sketchbook and a good collection of charcoal to work on his portrait which was – although Eren would never say it aloud – looking more and more perfect by the day.

He’d just started shading light lines beneath the flutter of Levi’s eyelashes when his phone rang loud and repetitively on his bedside table next to him.

Since the business trip announcement Levi had been working long and hectic hours, cramming all the work he had to get done into his breaks and evenings so that their time together had dropped significantly. While Eren couldn’t say he found the situation favourable he understood its necessity.

Eren fumbled for the phone and felt depressingly disappointed when he saw it was only Mikasa calling – the feeling followed shortly after by a wave of irrepressible guilt because he seriously wasn’t this fucking ungrateful normally.

“Hey,” Eren said once he dusted his fingers off against his jeans, supremely unconcerned about the chalky black smudges he’d be wiping off later.  “Isn’t it really early over there?”

“ _Not for people with normal sleep schedules,”_ Mikasa said. “ _Nine am isn’t that bad, Eren_.”

“You only get to say that because you’re a total freak who gets up at six in the morning to go on runs and stuff. You morning people sicken me.”

“ _Well, if I sicken you I suppose you don’t want a souvenir from Japan then.”_

“Hey, hey, let’s not get drastic,” Eren said and although she didn’t laugh outwardly Eren could hear the smile in her voice.

“ _How is the studying going_?”

“Good for a change.”

“ _You sound surprised yourself,_ ” Mikasa commented dryly. “ _Should I be worried_ _or is there something else you’re not telling me?_ ”

It was said as a joke but Eren’s heart skipped a beat and his mouth ran very dry all of a sudden because the crux of the matter was _yes_ – now that Mikasa had gone and brought it up there _was_ something he wasn’t telling her.

“ _Eren_?” Her tone immediately concerned.

Eren considered for all of three seconds throwing his phone out the window as hard as possible and watching his responsibilities shatter outside. It was tempting – questions of how much a stunt like that would drain his bank account aside.

“Okay, so I have something to tell you,” Eren said, as evenly and soothingly as he could manage because it was the only way to stop Mikasa from possibly assuming he had terminal cancer or had decided his second kidney was better served as a buy-in for some good black market contacts.

“ _Something to tell me?”_ Mikasa repeated. She sounded just the right kind of concerned – like she was tensed for the worst but not quite like she was about to hang-up and jump on the nearest flight back to California. All in all it was the best Eren could have hoped for.

“Um, the thing is a few of the days you’re visiting are actually going to overlap with somebody else who’s visiting.” There was really no easy way to say the truth when it came to Mikasa so Eren decided to just get it over with. “My boyfriend.”

The silence down the phone line was positively deadly. “ _Your_ boyfriend _? I wasn’t aware you had one_.”

“Levi has been kind of a recent addition to my life,” Eren admitted. “It’s a – um – a long distance relationship.”

“ _How recent?_ ” Mikasa demanded, and her voice hadn’t climbed higher, exactly, but Eren didn’t need it to in order to tell she was barely restraining herself from vicious and bloody murder. Whether that was him or Levi he couldn’t quite tell.

“Literally only a week and half. I didn’t keep anything from you.” Except he’d perhaps been planning to. “Look, you just need to have some faith in me, okay? Levi makes me happy and he’s a great guy. Honestly, if you gave him a chance you two would probably like each other. You’ve got a lot in common.”

“ _I don’t like it_ ,” Mikasa deadpanned and Eren felt himself snap.

“You don’t have to. I’m old enough to do what I want and date who I like. You’re my sister not my mother.” The phone was silent and Eren felt instantly contrite. Taking in a deep breath he tried again. “Look,” he said, softer this time. “I don’t ask you for a lot of thing, but I’m asking you this: please just give him a chance. I really, really like him.”

Mikasa didn’t reply for a long, drawn-out moment and the background static of the international call was making him positively queasy. Eren waited it out without breathing, gnawing at his lip while the silence stretched into a full minute.

Finally – after leaving him hanging for so long he was starting to seriously wonder if the call had dropped out – she sighed, a gusty breath of air that was purely to show Eren she was willing to concede this round. “ _So… his name is Levi?_ ”

Eren grinned and tried contain the feeling like he’d swallowed something fizzy much too fast, an excited bubbling in his stomach. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.”

“ _I look forward to meeting him_.”

And Mikasa’s voice was tightly controlled and Eren knew their first impressions of each other would be nothing but a walking disaster – but this one small victory was enough for him right now.

The call was short after that but when he hung-up it was with the understanding that Mikasa wasn’t mad at him – that she understood and while she didn’t necessarily _like_ it, she was willing to watch from the sidelines for now.

His friends knew and Armin was fully supportive and he even had Mikasa’s tacit approval for the time being – it was hard _not_ to feel high off his own adrenaline.

His phone shuddered loudly in his hand from where he was rubbing his thumb repeatedly over the case while he smiled like a loon at the ceiling and when Eren glanced down it was to see Levi’s name lighting up the screen.

**_New Text Message – Levi – 5:03  
_ ** _I fucking miss you_

Eren took a deep breath.

Three days. Just three fucking more days.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh gosh. I know full well it has been ridiculously long since I updated. I am so unbelievably sorry about that. Some of you might know I moved - first into a hotel and then into an apartment - and started up uni as well recently, so my free time has been considerably lessened. 
> 
> I hope the adorable shenanigans of the boys at least partway made up for the long gap. My ask box on tumblr is always open so feel free to drop by and talk to me about this fic if you would like. I know there was a bit of concern expressed that I might have dropped it, but I can assure you that's not the case. As always I track the tag "fic: you have been connected" as well if you don't feel comfortable asking me anything (although anon is enabled <3) 
> 
> Also it looks like the Armin aside WILL be happening, although I can't guarantee with iron certainty when. 
> 
> Thank you all - as per usual - for your amazing support on this story!


	14. The arrival

The day of Levi’s arrival, Eren spent the morning quietly but determinedly having something of a breakdown as he straightened his room for what was perhaps the sixth time in as many minutes despite it being about as tidy as a room owned by Eren Jaeger was likely to get.

In a matter of hours Levi was going to step off his plane and onto the tarmac and Eren was going to be waiting like a dutiful boyfriend at the arrivals gate with shaking hands and possibly sweating with nerves so badly that he ran the risk of just turning into Bertholdt.

And then Levi was going to step through that door and he would be right _there_ and Eren didn’t really know what he was going to do – what he was going to say – and just fucking imagining it all right now was overwhelming him so the idea that it was about to be a reality made him feel a bit faint.

“Eren.”

“Hmm?” Eren replied as he shifted his sketchbooks from his desk to his drawer only to hesitate and lift them back out again after a moment of consideration.

Armin sighed. “Eren, that is the third time you’ve moved those books.”

Eren paused. Was it? “No, I think you’re making things up now.”

“They started in your wardrobe,” Armin said patiently, “and somehow you’ve slowly worked them across the length of the whole room. I don’t think this ‘cleaning up’ thing is helping your nerves any. If anything it seems to be making them worse.”

That was probably true. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eren sniffed petulantly as he finally settled the sketchbooks up on the highest shelf above his desk for reasons that most certainly weren’t as petty as them being out of Levi’s reach, because Eren didn’t know if he was quite ready to show him the literal hundreds of pages filled with various scratchings of his face and fingers and _everything_.

“Why don’t we go and get some lunch before Levi’s flight gets in?” Armin tried, but Eren shook his head. He felt a bit like he might be sick at any moment and he wasn’t exactly itching to give it ammunition in case of a riot.

“I think I’m just going to…”

“Rearrange your whole room a time or two?” Armin suggested dryly as he lifted himself up off Eren’s bed, dutifully smoothing out the creases he’d left in the cover lest he aggravate Eren’s sudden inclination towards military cleanliness. “Look, Eren, you really need to calm down a little bit or you’re going to work yourself up over this even more. I thought you were excited to see Levi.”

“I am,” Eren protested, slamming the drawer of his desk closed loudly. “I am and that’s the problem. Just…” He didn’t really want to get into this right now, but if not now then when? Eren took in a deep breath and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. “What if I screw this up? What if I get to the airport and I’m not what he expected?”

Armin was silent for a moment. “This isn’t like you.”

Eren forced a laugh. “Isn’t it?”

“Okay,” Armin amended, “the complete lack of any kind of self-esteem is like you, I’ll grant you that much. What I meant though is you’re not usually this unconfident. Eren, you’re the most determined person I know. You don’t give up on anything, so why are you already giving up on this?”

“I’m not… I’m not ‘giving up’. That’s not…”

“Eren,” Armin said again, firmer this time. “You’re giving up your faith in your relationship after it’s barely begun. If things don’t work out with Levi then so be it, but don’t sabotage yourself before you can even get to that point.”

Armin was right of course because Armin was right about everything in Eren’s life.

“I hate it when you go and make sense like that,” Eren huffed and Armin cracked a smile.

“So basically you hate me all the time?”

“Shut up and feed me.”

Armin laughed and Eren playfully shouldered him out the door, locking it absently behind him and thanking god when his key didn’t stick between the tumblers.

 “Where are you two heading off to?” Reiner called from down the hall, leaning out of his room to give them a grin and waggle his eyebrows suspiciously.

“None of your business Nancy Drew,” Eren said at the same time that Armin answered: “We’re getting lunch before Eren has to go pick Levi up from the airport.”

Reiner’s face looked like Christmas had come early. “You didn’t mention your boyfriend was coming over,” he leered. “You little devil, you’ve let us believe all week that this was some kind of Sleepless in Seattle deal and now he’s actually coming to visit?”

“No,” Eren said firmly. “No, you’re not going to interrogate my boyfriend or whatever else you’re planning on doing. _If_ I introduce him to you during his stay here – _if,_ Reiner – everybody is going to be on their best behaviour.”

“I’m not going to break him,” Reiner wheedled.

Eren snorted as he turned to tug Armin back down the corridor, calling over his shoulder: “It’s not him I’m worried about here.”

“What does that mean?” Reiner called after them. Eren suppressed a grin and waved his fingers over his shoulder. “Jaeger! Oi! _What does that mean_?”

“Feel better now that you’ve taken your anger out on an innocent bystander?” Armin observed.

“A little,” Eren admitted.

.

Lunch with Armin was about as good as to be expected when Eren was so nervous he could feel his sweaty palms slipping against cutlery and he couldn’t go more than ten minutes without wondering when he’d stopped breathing.

Armin played the role of the dutiful friend, distracting Eren by loudly asking after schoolwork and Mikasa and snapping his fingers in his face any time Eren started to get that shifty distant look in his eyes. Any other day it would have been the kind of hideously rude action Armin wouldn’t have tolerated from anybody else let alone engaged in himself, but fucking hell Eren needed something to bring him back to earth every time he slipped away.

He snuck a glance at the clock hanging on the restaurant wall as they paid their bill and felt almost a little woozy because _an hour_. He had one single hour – sixty minutes, three-thousand and six-hundred seconds.

How did regular people in long distance relationships who met online deal with this, meeting for the first time after long months of later nights and just wanting to feel their fingers curve around your own? Was it normal to feel like he could have a heart attack any moment?

Jesus fuck; he _was_ going to have a heart attack any moment now and be rushed to hospital and Levi would be left standing all alone at the airport, not knowing that the only thing keeping Eren alive was a chunk of machinery and Levi was going to be a widower at thirty-four, and was he even using that term properly –

“Eren,” Armin said, tugging lightly on his sleeve to snatch his attention back. “If you’re done whimpering at the wall you should probably get going now.”

The woman behind the counter was eyeing him oddly and Eren supposed he might have let out a whine or two.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, okay.”

Armin read his mind instantly. “So, you’re heading off to the airport now?”

“No, I can drop you back –.”

Armin shook his head firmly. “I’ll call Connie for a lift. You need to head off in case his flight gets in early.”

That sounded reasonable but Eren hesitated. “Are you sure?”

Armin sighed. “Good bye, Eren,” he said pointedly and Eren took it as his cue to shuffle obediently out the door because a voice like that brokered no arguing, he paused for only a moment to dig out the keys to Jean’s borrowed car – _Scratch it and die, Jaeger_ – before stepping out of the restaurant foyer.

It was bright out and Eren shaded his eyes from the sun with a careless wrist against his forehead. He was so busy squinting for the car as he crunched his way across the parking lot that he almost missed the sharp squeak of expensive shoes twisting much too fast on pavement and a muffled grunt that followed it.

Eren paused, keys dangling from loose fingers as he strained over his shoulder to see where the noise had come from.

Just barely in sight behind a nearby building he could catch a glimpse of a figure or two backing a third person against a wall. Eren might not be an expert in a lot of things in life, but by this point he’d been in more than enough fights to recognize the sign of one brewing.

One of the figures shoved the other so that they slammed up against a window with enough force to rattle the glass audibly.

Eren glanced at his watch before gritting his teeth and edging in closer.

Levi’s plane wasn’t due for that whole hour yet and it’d take him only half that to get to the airport. Besides, international flight that it was, Eren was willing to bet it was going to wind up delayed anyway.

He was close enough now to pick up on raised voices. Eren could practically feel the violence escalating with every step nearer he took.

“Oi,” he called just as someone swung a fist.

Eren didn’t hesitate – only dropped his keys like the dead weight they were and sprinted forward.

.

The flight had been shit – screaming children everywhere and five hours of soap reruns that Levi really couldn’t be assed to watch. By the time the plane skidded into landing Levi was more than ready to throw himself in the direction of the nearest soft surface and hope for a comfortable landing.

He was holding onto high hopes that he might just be able to work it so Eren _was_ said comfortable surface. After all the months of confusion and pining he really couldn’t put up even a token of resistance at the idea of wrapping his arms around Eren and never letting go.

Somebody slammed heavily into Levi’s shoulder so that he staggered, offering him a half-hearted apology as they shuffled into the airport without pausing. Levi scowled for a moment before hefting his carry-on bag more firmly over his shoulder and trudging through the arrivals gate.

The airport was crowded and noisy and Levi felt almost sick as he struggled through the waves of people to the waiting area, and it was quite possible Levi had drank too much coffee on the flight over because his heart was drumming so fast it might as well have been going for a drum solo in a punk rock band.

Breaking through the wall of people Levi managed to finally breathe again, rolling his stiff shoulders and groaning as he took a moment just to himself – supposedly to recover from the flight but really to clamp down on the nerves flicking through him – before straightening up and casting about for brilliant green eyes and golden skin.

He was so busy trying to appear suave and dignified it took him a moment to realize that he couldn’t actually see Eren anywhere – not a glimpse of messy hair in the crowd or the sound of his name being called out among the cacophony of noise.

Frowning, he looked at his watch – no, his flight had gotten in right on time for a pleasant change – and then after a moment of fumbling managed to drag his phone out of his pocket. The minute or so it took to boot up was the longest of his life.

There were no missed calls.

Levi took in a deep breath and tried not to panic as he looked around. He found it hard to believe that Eren would be late for this. Call him arrogant but he’d thought Eren was as excited to finally meet him as he was to see him.

Should he look around some more? Wait? What was the proper protocol for your shithead of a boyfriend forgetting you in an airport two thousand miles from home?

His phone rang – loud and abrupt enough that he actually startled – and when he raised it up it was Eren’s name that was flashing across the screen.

 _There better fucking be a good explanation for this_ , Levi thought irritably as he answered the call.

“Where the fuck are you? I’m standing at the gate looking like an asshole who just got stood up on his first date.”

It was silent for a second before someone answered – someone who wasn’t Eren. “Is this – this is Levi, right?”

 _Something was wrong_.

“Who is this?” Levi said, much too quickly to be anything short of an accusation.

“Ah, this is Armin. Eren’s friend.”

“I know that,” Levi said shortly, trying to tap down on the irritation bubbling up thick in his blood because Levi couldn’t do worry without anger. “Where’s Eren?”

The brief pause before Armin answered was one of the longest of Levi’s life.

“Eren’s in hospital.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for being so patient in between updates. Wow, this chapter was a kicker, huh?


	15. The first meeting

Levi was, quite frankly, a mess.

He’d held it together pretty well on the phone with Armin while he spoke to him in a soothing but semi-urgent voice; telling him that it Eren wasn’t on death’s door or anything but he was more than a little roughed up.

“He’ll live,” Armin had said grimly. “But he’s not going to be in the greatest shape for a while. Do you need a lift from the airport? I can send Jean or Reiner to pick you up.”

“Just give me the name of the hospital,” Levi had replied firmly, already elbowing people out of the way on the way to pick up his luggage. “I’ll take a cab.”

“Call me if you –.” Armin started to say but Levi had already hung up.

Now, sitting in a cab tapping his fingers impatiently against his thigh, Levi wondered why he’d ever thought it would be as simple as stepping off a plane and into Eren’s arms. Things had never worked that way with them, had they?

“Can’t you go any faster?” Levi ground out as they came to a screeching stop at a red light.

The driver looked offended at the mere suggestion. “If you don’t like my driving you can walk.”

Levi narrowed his eyes but bit at his tongue to stop himself from saying anything that might get him kicked out to the curb. It was difficult because worry always tended to translate into anger for Levi but he couldn’t afford to waste precious time looking for another taxi if his mouth got him booted out of this one.

He glanced at his phone. It’d been nearly half an hour since he’d gotten the call already.

The idea of Eren beaten half to hell and lying on a bed in some strange white room set Levi’s heart racing all anew. Armin had been vague on the phone – more out of Levi’s desire to rush than any real malice on Armin’s part – but the hurried impression Levi had gotten was that Eren had picked a fight when he maybe should have just walked away.

Breathe, Levi coached himself irritably when he discovered he was hissing out his breath like a kettle boiling over; raging and hot and ready to burn anything that stood in the way of the ebb and flow of his anger.

“We’re here,” The driver announced as they rolled up out front of Eren’s hospital, idling by the curb while Levi reached around to stuff a handful of bills into the driver’s fist without stopping to see how much it was. The surprised look on the cabbie’s face told him he might have overshot the mark a bit.

“Keep the change,” he said shortly before stepping out of the cab.

It was still plenty bright out with the California sun blinding Levi as he wrestled his suitcase out of the trunk and onto the tarmac with a heavy thud.  He knocked against the side of the cab and stepped up onto the pavement so he was already rattling his way to the entrance by the time the cab gunned out of the parking lot.

Inside the hospital was only a shade dimmer than outside and Levi got more than a few looks as he pulled his sizeable suitcase to the help desk. A pretty brunette smiled up at him. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Eren Jaeger?” Levi said and if he tapped his foot against the floor to an impatient beat that matched the unsteady thumping in his chest it was only because words were time and Levi didn’t particularly feel like he had much of that right now.

The nurse hit a few keys and frowned at the screen. “I’m sorry, it’s family only at the moment.” Catching Levi’s expression of mounting horror she rushed to add: “He’s stable, but he’s in need of rest and recovery.”

“I’m his boyfriend,” Levi said bluntly with what little patience he still possessed.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said earnestly but unhelpfully. “No visitors until tomorrow it says.”

Levi took in a deep breath. “Listen here you fucking –.”

“ _Levi!_ ”

Levi turned around whip quick to see a small blond jogging towards him with serious blue eyes and face that looked as tired as Levi felt. It took Levi’s scattered mind a moment to realize that this was the same Armin tucked away in so many of Eren’s facebook photos. He came to a stop in front of the baffled and affronted receptionist but didn’t so much as glance at her. “You’re Levi, right?”

“Armin?” Levi guessed even though he knew he was right.

Armin nodded and he did Levi the courtesy of not smiling and playing nice because this wasn’t the first time introduction any of them had wanted.

“Levi’s fine,” Armin said to the receptionist. And then to Levi: “This way. Eren has a room to himself. It’s not a private room, but seeing as how he hopefully won’t be here long enough to need one it is more than sufficient.”

Levi followed after him and to avoid thinking about Eren – if just for a second – he asked: “A room to himself?”

“You know Eren’s father is a doctor, right? What’s the point of having connections if Eren’s not going to use them?”

Levi didn’t buy that for a moment. Eren was a lot of things – gorgeous, determined and _Levi_ _’s_ – but he wasn’t what one might call smart or manipulative. Eren had tunnel vision; he didn’t consider things he himself hadn’t worked towards with a single minded obsession to be his due. Eren was the least entitled person Levi knew – he would never have even considered the possibility that he could use his father’s name as a currency.

“If anybody called in favors owed to Eren I’m willing to bet it wasn’t him,” Levi remarked as blandly as he could.

Armin didn’t even feign innocence, just offered Levi a strained smile. “Consider me Eren’s PR manager then. I’ll call in the favors owed to him on his behalf.”

For anybody else that might have been a terrible first impression. For Levi it was exactly what he needed. Eren wasn’t smart enough to look out for himself, but all it took was a handful of minutes and Levi knew he could trust Armin to do that instead.

They lapsed into silence for a minute as they walked with quick, swift steps down the corridor, Levi struggling to let Armin lead without outpacing him in his eagerness and unsure what he could possibly ask that would soothe the sickness in his stomach.

No, better just take a deep breath because he’d be with Eren in a minute and that would answer everything. Nobody else seemed concerned – not the kind of concerned that made Levi think he ought to start writing a eulogy any time soon anyway – so Levi was just trying to take things in stride.

“He’s just down the end here,” Armin said quietly as they turned a corner and Levi’s heart did something that felt an awful lot like fainting.

Jesus fucking Christ. He was about to see his boyfriend for the first time in these long months.

The circumstances were far from ideal but the point was they were still _happening_. Eren might be bruised and battered and Levi might be loaded down with luggage that wasn’t even fucking metaphorical, but despite that he was still about to walk through a door and actually _see_ Eren. He was going to be in the same room as Eren, touch Eren; _kiss_ Eren.

He didn’t want to call it meeting because the truth was despite what anybody else thought with their fucking two-bit brains and their shitty attitudes Eren and Levi had met months ago by chance in a tiny corner of the internet where nobody would ever think such a thing like that might happen. They’d met and talked and grown together and this right here meant so much to them but it didn’t _define_ their relationship. Their relationship was already defined – it was _real_ – this wasn’t a confirmation or a realization or anything like that; this was just two guys who were a little in love who could finally be together without thousands of miles between them.

Levi breathed in and looked at the door Armin had paused in front. Inside he could hear voices – faint but definite – and it both shook him and awed him a little to know that one of those voices most definitely belonged to Eren.

Armin cast him a sideways glance. “Are you okay?” He asked with a kind of tact that so few people in Levi’s life possessed. It was almost disappointing that Levi didn’t have the headspace to appreciate it. He couldn’t even throw out a sharp-tongued retort. Instead he took in a steadying breath and nodded.

Armin opened the door.

There was a lot going on in the room. It was lit much too bright by overhead lights that made Levi a little dizzy and there was a handful of empty beds to the left, a small gaggle of people were grouped to the right talking all at once. Levi noticed all of this but only peripherally. They were happenstances he catalogued in the back of his mind to actually worry about later because the moment Armin had swung that door open Levi had eyes for only one thing.

“Levi!” Eren called from where he sat propped up at the head of the standard issue hospital bed looking tired and bandaged but so clearly _there_.

Levi realized that the whole room had gone silent; everybody was waiting for him to say something.

“You’re a fucking moron. Tell me which bones aren’t broken and I’ll finish the job,” he said and he didn’t even care that the shitheads intruding on his personal moment were looking scandalized. If they were expecting great romance they had picked the wrong couple.

Eren’s black and blue face broke out into a smile so goddamn radiant Levi almost forgot how angry he was at him. “I’m glad you got here safe.”

“Well,” Levi snarled, “one of us had to.”

“Okay,” Armin said in the background as he started shepherding people out. “You’ve all seen that Eren’s alive and Jean knows his car is safe so we’re just going to go now.” There was a lot of noise – and Levi had no fucking clue how many strings Armin had pulled to get them all in here when it was supposedly ‘family only’ – but the room emptied out and rather suddenly it was just them.

“So,” Eren said softly into the sudden silence. “Are you going to stand over there or come here and give me a proper hello?”

Levi didn’t need to be asked a second time. Funny how after so long with so many miles between them the distance between him and Eren’s bed felt like the greatest distance of all.

He left his luggage by the door and approached Eren as quickly as he felt he could without running the risk of realizing how terrifying this was and just bolting entirely. He hadn’t felt this nervous in as long as he could remember.

There was an empty seat beside Eren but Levi ignored it, sidling right up to Eren’s bed so that he could gently – and slowly, so slowly in case one of them spooked because this was _happening_ – reach down to take one of Eren’s hands in his own.

The feeling was almost electric and he could feel Eren’s fingers trembling as he slowly intertwined them with his own. 

“You’re an idiot,” Levi repeated, more calmly than he actually felt because he couldn’t possibly _be_ calm when he was touching Eren like this. “You’re such a fucking moron.”

He was looking at their locked fingers but even so Levi knew Eren was smiling. “Yeah,” he agreed. “But I can’t honestly say I’m sorry. It was totally worth it. You should see the other two; I got off lightly compared to them.”

“You’re a fucking hothead. What were you thinking getting into a fight like that?”

“I was thinking,” Eren said with careful words, “that I wasn’t going to just watch some guy get jumped without doing anything. It was two to one, Levi. They might have killed him.”

“They might have killed _you_.”

“But,” Eren said and Levi finally looked up to see that yes, he was indeed smiling, “they _didn_ _’t_.”

Levi closed his eyes for a moment and sucked in a breath before leaning in to tilt up Eren’s chin with two fingers and finally – _finally_ – kiss him.

Kissing Eren felt very right in a way Levi could not explain. There had been so many nights of listening to Eren laugh and seeing the quirk of his lips and wishing so badly that he could just lean in and take them. It wasn’t a perfect textbook kiss – too quick and too soft because Levi didn’t want to risk hurting Eren when he was already so battered – but it was fucking perfect for _them_.

Levi broke the kiss after a moment, pulling a way so Eren could blink at him with dazed green eyes.

“Wow,” he said a little dopily and Levi had to lean forward and smother a smile against Eren’s shoulder because only Eren fucking Jaeger would end a first kiss with the word _wow_.

“You’re such a shit,” Levi said for no other reason than it was perfectly true.

“Yeah,” Eren agreed. “But I’m _your_ shit.”

“That sounded very wrong,” Levi said after a pregnant pause. “Sweet, but wrong.”

“Yeah,” Eren agreed again. “I did not really think that one through.”

.

In the end Eren’s injuries were largely superficial.

He had a light concussion that the doctor wasn’t so keen on him leaving the hospital with and a few stitches tucked up on his forehead where somebody had smashed him with a glass bottle. He’d be bruised and tender for a good while yet but mostly Eren had managed to luck out.

His one crowning glory was his beautiful splintered broken arm.

Levi wasn’t even sympathetic because as far as he was concerned if Eren was going to charge into fights that weren’t his half-cocked then he could shoulder all the injuries that came with them. Maybe that would teach him to think before rushing in guns blazing.

(Levi still doubted it.)

“I can’t believe they’re making me stay in the hospital overnight,” Eren groaned. “It’s your first night here and already things are going to shit.”

“We’ll manage,” Levi grunted as he rolled his shoulders, still stiff from his flight. He’d just gotten off the phone with his hotel who had been expecting him to check in hours ago and hadn’t been too pleased when Levi said he wouldn’t be checking in until the next morning.

Truth be told Levi himself wasn’t thrilled. He had plans that involved expensive dinners and Eren naked in his bed. Neither of those things were happening now that he was camped out in Eren’s hospital room with coffee from the café downstairs for dinner and Eren so banged up Levi didn’t even really want to risk touching him too much in case it sparked off more pain.

“You don’t have to stay here overnight,” Eren said again for what was probably the thirteenth time. “Go check into your hotel tonight, get some proper rest.”

“I came here to see you not the hotel,” Levi said bluntly as he leant back in his chair. “And honestly I’m not so sure you won’t fucking go off to play the dashing hero again if I let you out of my sight once more.”

“I’m not going anywhere like this, Levi. I can’t even scratch my own nose at the moment let alone thwart evil wrong doers,” Eren said with an amused tilt of his lips.

“No,” Levi repeated. “I don’t fucking trust you anymore. You are a goddamn magnet for trouble. I’d come back and you’d be overdosed on morphine or some shit.”

“You see, you’re making the mistake of thinking I regularly land myself in hospital for fights,” Eren said in what he obviously thought was a soothing tone, stroking his thumb against the back of Levi’s hand because they hadn’t really stopped the whole hand holding thing since they’d started it. “I don’t. I’m usually much more careful.”

“Great,” Levi deadpanned. “I feel so reassured.”

“What can I say,” Eren smirked. “I’m a reassuring person.”

“Shut the fuck up and drink your juice,” Levi sighed and Eren laughed so hard he wound up hissing in pain, pulling back his hand from Levi’s to rub at his head.

Levi sat up straighter. “Are you okay?”

“Sorry, still just a little sore,” Eren apologized like he’d done something wrong.

“You took a bottle to your head five hours ago,” Levi said, leaning forward to gently pry Eren’s hand away from where he had started idly rubbing at his stitches. “I’m more surprised you’re not fucking comatose than anything.”

“Thick skull,” Eren joked, but his smile was weaker than it had been earlier and already Levi could see whatever adrenaline had kept him running since Levi had arrived was fast running out.

“You should probably go to sleep,” he suggested and Eren scoffed at him. “Shut the fuck up for a moment, you little shit. You’re exhausted and you’re still vaguely concussed. It’s late anyway,” a quick glance at the darkness outside the window confirmed that to be true, “and you’ve got to be up at eight for discharge.”

Eren still looked unhappy. “I’m not going to be particularly great company when I’m unconscious to the world.”

“You’re not great company now,” Levi snarked and Eren’s feeble attempt to swat him was both pathetic and endearing. “Look, I’m tired anyway. Between the flight from hell and having a panic attack over your dumb ass I could use some rest too.”

It was a cheap tactic – not untrue, but definitely cheap – and they both knew it. Fortunately, Levi wasn’t above playing dirty for somebody’s own good.

“Fine,” Eren sighed like Levi had asked the world of him. “Get the door and the lights?”

“God, I hope you’re not going to be this spoilt when you’re not bedbound,” Levi sniped without meaning it but got up to shuffle to the other side of the room anyway. He poked his head out for a moment and had a quick murmured conversation with a nurse to make sure it was indeed okay for Eren to be sleeping in his state – it was – before closing the door softly and flicking the light switch.

The sudden change from the overwhelming brightness of hospital lights to the mellow darkness without them left Levi blind and reeling for a moment, his eyes apparently in no hurry to adjust.

“This way,” Eren called, and his voice was most definitely amused. “I forget your eyesight isn’t the greatest.”

Levi would have objected but Eren wasn’t exactly wrong, so he just shuffled back towards Eren, feeling out blindly with his fingertips until he hit the end rail of the bed and then inching himself slowly upwards with fingers skating along the bundled covers.

“Here,” Eren said and Levi felt Eren fumble until he managed to find his hand and slide the fingers together again.

“You’re very big on hand holding,” Levi observed, like he was really any better at the moment.

“I’m injured,” Eren mock whimpered as he squeezed his hand. “You have to humor me. It’s the rules.”

“I’m not sure that’s right,” Levi said but didn’t try and take his hand back.

After a moment Eren spoke again: “Are you just going to sleep in the chair?”

“Unless you want me to sleep on the fucking floor,” Levi said although for the moment he was perfectly content just standing here and feeling Eren’s skin against his own.

“Or,” Eren breathed conspiratorially, “You can sleep up here with me.”

“Eren, there is no way that bed would fit two of us,” Levi said. “Especially not with you being in the state you are.”

“I’m a little beat up not dying,” Eren huffed. “And you’re small enough that it’d hardly make a difference.”

“Oi,” Levi snapped, but the truth was that sounded fucking tempting. So far nothing had worked out for them and Levi had waited so long and come so far and he couldn’t quite deny that he wanted Eren closer than just his hand in Levi’s own.

“Levi,” Eren whispered so low it was almost a whine.

“Christ, you’re so fucking annoying,” Levi sighed. “Fine, budge the fuck over then.”

Eren squeezed his hand tightly for a moment and then there was just the sound of creaking and shuffling as he edged away. Levi’s eyes had adjusted enough that he could see the faint outline of Eren on the other side of the bed.

“Well, what are you waiting for? A written invitation?”

“Keep it up and I’ll fucking make _you_ sleep on the floor, broken bones or not,” Levi muttered and he heard Eren snicker lightly in response like Levi had been joking.

Levi heaved himself up on the side of the bed, manoeuvring around the lowered but inconvenient side guards. After a moment of awkward shuffling he managed to ease himself comfortably up next to Eren beneath the covers that were really only meant for one person but just barely worked for two.

Even in the dark Levi could see Eren smile. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” he muttered but somehow found himself easing an arm over Eren’s waist anyway.

“I can’t help it, I _am_ pleased with myself.”

“You’re in a fucking hospital, you crazy shit.”

“I really couldn’t care where I am right now. I’m just so glad you’re here.”

And Levi was a grown damn man and he most definitely didn’t feel a little like Eren had sucked all the air from him with that one simple but earnest sentence.

Levi pressed forward and placed a kiss on the side of Eren’s mouth; just a little one because right now it wasn’t about making out in the hospital dark, it was about Levi’s hand on Eren’s hip and Eren’s ankles tangled together with his own.

“Levi?”

“Go to sleep,” Levi muttered, reaching up to run a thumb along the side of Eren’s face. “We can talk tomorrow. Right now, go to sleep.”

He felt the twitch of Eren’s mouth against his hand but Eren didn’t say anything else, just settled into the bed and maybe inched a tiny bit closer unconsciously. After only a few minutes the exhaustion that had been chasing him so solidly since he’d had a throw down in a parking lot finally caught up with him and his breath evened out into steady whispers and Levi knew he was rather obviously asleep.

It was dark and warm and Levi had just gone through the day from hell and Eren was so _close_ …

He drifted off to the feel of Eren’s skin against his and the knowledge that, if just for once, he could be sure that everything would be okay in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the over whelming feedback on the last chapter and your amazing ability to cope with cliff hanger endings. I'm still so surprised by the amount of comments and kudos that keep pouring in and I am always open for answering questions over on tumblr if you have any.


	16. The introduction and the question

Eren awoke with a slight ache in his head and feeling much too warm for how cold the room had been when he fell asleep.

Groaning, Eren tried to shuffle himself upright only to find himself rather unable to so much as wriggle. He felt heavy, and not just in the way that his body ached and groaned, but rather like he’d fallen asleep beneath a blanket made of iron or stone. 

He tried to sit up only for somebody to moan and suddenly the weight keeping him pressed down felt even heavier.

_What…?_

It was Levi. Levi curled up on the bed next to Eren where he had managed to coax him the previous night. Only instead of being comfortably close enough to touch without really holding each other Levi now had an arm thrown over Eren’s shoulders and their legs were tangled together rather hopelessly. When Eren tried to move Levi frowned and nestled in even closer.

Holy crap, Levi was a cuddler.

Eren took in several deep breaths to try and stop himself laughing. Partly because he didn’t fancy the way his body might handle that kind of action and partly because he didn’t want to run the very real risk of waking Levi up.

He’d worried the man enough, let him have his rest.

Slowly Eren lowered himself back down fully onto the bed, letting Levi have his way without any fight at all. It wasn’t like Eren was particularly disagreeable with the situation. True, the position was a little rough on his arm and between the covers and two lots of body heat it was awfully warm, but Eren had spent months yearning for even a sliver of touch between them, so Eren supposed this was nothing less than their due.

“You’re a lot different than how you look, hey?” Eren smiled, turning his head slightly so that he could see what little of Levi’s face wasn’t buried between Eren’s shoulder and the pillow.

Even in sleep Levi’s face looked as stern and cool as usual, the furrow between his brows only slightly lessened but the frown on his face perpetual and unchanging. If Eren didn’t know any better – if he didn’t notice the way Levi’s breaths fluttered against his skin and the way he held Eren so close like he was afraid Eren might just disappear while he slept – he’d almost swear he had just closed his eyes for a moment.

He was still, however, breath-takingly stunning in a way that almost left Eren a little dizzy.

It took a little manoeuvring but somehow Eren managed to wiggle onto his side without waking Levi, his good arm tucked a little between them while the one wedged in the cast rested atop the covers. Like this Eren could skate his fingers over the sharp angles of Levi’s face, the pale smooth slide of his skin.

“I don’t get how you can think so little of yourself sometimes,” Eren breathed into the silence. “You’re perfect.”

Fingers reached up to grab Eren’s own and Eren just about had an aneurism.

“Jesus fucking _Christ_!” Eren gasped, making to pull back only for Levi’s grip on his fingers to tighten. “You gave me a goddamn heart attack! Why didn’t just _say_ you were awake instead of scaring the living daylights out of me?”

Levi’s eyes flickered open and he smirked, looking surprisingly awake for somebody whose hair was tousled like he’d gone six rounds in a boxing ring with a severely pissed off hairdresser. “Wouldn’t have gotten to hear you praise me like that, would I?”

Eren felt his face burning and it was all he could do to roll over and bury his head into the pillow to avoid feeling even more stupid than he already did. “You weren’t _meant_ to hear,” he groaned.

“Hey,” Levi coaxed and Eren heard him shifting slightly and then felt the undeniably wonderful feeling of fingers carding softly through his hair in a way that made his heart beat a little quicker. “Don’t get all embarrassed on me. It was… nice.”

“ _Nice_ ,” Eren deadpanned. 

“Both of us can’t go getting all fucking mushy as shit or we’d be here all day,” Levi said reasonably as he continued brushing his fingers through Eren’s hair in what was arguably the most mushy gesture of them all. “Now c’mon. Do you want to stay here all day or do you want to get discharged?”

Eren thought about getting up and the verifiable landslide of agony that might cause his battered body. “I don’t suppose I can just rent out this hospital room or something?”

“Let me rephrase,” Levi said after a moment. “Do you want to stay here all day or do you want to come back to my hotel with me where there’s a fucking shower and an actual fucking bed instead of a glorified coffin?”

“Urg.” Eren wrinkled his nose and snuggled his face back into the pillow. “No, you can’t bribe me like that. I have a reputation of being unreasonable I have to maintain.”

“Sorry,” Levi said sounding the complete opposite. “My mistake.”

Eren sighed and turned his head, opening his eyes to peek at Levi over the fluff of his pillow.

He looked exhausted and strangely refreshed all at the same time. If Eren didn’t know the truth he would have thought Levi had spent the past ten hours or so living it up in the king sized bed waiting for him back at the motel instead of crammed in a cot with Eren’s knees knocking his hips and the snoring of a concussed man to keep him up.

It made something in Eren ache with fondness because Levi was _here_ – sitting next to him looking bedraggled and with his hair strangely flat on one side from the hefty press of hospital pillows and looking like he was debating several different variants of homicide via arson but so very _there_.

“What?” Levi grunted, seemingly finally realizing that Eren was peering up at him from where he lay splattered across the covers.

“You have bed hair,” Eren said.

 “I can assure you that you look like complete shit too,” Levi replied jauntily.

“Lies. I look like a fucking supermodel and you know it. I hear casts and concussions are really in this year.”

Levi smiled at him – and yes, Eren’s heart still squirmed in his chest like an overeager puppy – and ran his fingers through Eren’s hair one last time before pulling back with a sigh.

“We need to get going,” he said as he stretched, already pulling back the covers and levering himself out of bed. “I’ll go get a nurse and see if we can get you ready to leave this shithole.”

“Oi,” Eren whined, snagging Levi’s sleeve with his fingertips. “Can I get, I don’t know, a good morning kiss or something first?’

Levi looked at him dubiously. “A good morning kiss? What are you, five?”

Eren fluttered his eyelashes innocently and tried to look endearingly seductive instead of a grandmother’s patchwork quilt of blue-purple-black.

Levi sighed and leant forward and Eren propped himself up expectantly, ignoring the way his heart thudded a little too fast and a little too loud. It wasn’t their first kiss, but it was close enough that Eren felt more than a little nervous.

Levi settled one hand on the bed opposite Eren’s head and tucked the other under his chin so that he could tilt Eren’s face towards him, leaning in with all the suspense of a cheap romance novel until their lips were close enough to be breathing the same air.

“Eren,” Levi muttered, looking at him from beneath his lashes.

Eren swallowed heavily. “Yeah?”

“Brush your teeth, your morning breath is terrible,” Levi said and pulled back before Eren could even come up with a response.

.                            

It’d been a while since Eren had landed himself in hospital – since high school at least – and he could have sworn there hadn’t always been this much paperwork.

“I feel like I’m signing away my soul,” he groaned as he scrawled his signature on the bottom of his third sheet of paper while Levi skimmed idly through the ones he’d already scribbled on to make sure Eren hadn’t done exactly that. As an afterthought he added: “Should you be reading without your glasses?”

“Shut up and mind your fucking business,” Levi said without glancing up.

“I’m just asking. I don’t want to be back here again tomorrow because you gave yourself a migraine.”

“Eren,” Levi sighed.

“Okay, okay. Minding my own business.” Eren whirled his name at the bottom of the last page of discharge forms and tossed it onto the pile. “Done. Thank god. Can we go now? I’ve had enough of hospitals to last me the rest of my life.”

“I can only hope,” Levi commented sourly but obligingly shuffled the papers together and handed them to the woman behind the front counter. “Let’s go. I have to be at the hotel in about half an hour and the fucking bastards are pissed enough at me as it is.”

“Sorry,” Eren said and Levi shot him an annoyed glance.

“What did I tell you already?”

“No more apologizing because you already knew I was an idiot and this is just confirmation?”

“Exactly,” he said before yanking Eren down by the rumpled neck of the clean shirt Armin had left him and into a kiss that tasted of the hospital-provided toothpaste and industrial grade mouthwash Eren had to stomach before Levi would let him anywhere near his lips.

Eren kissed back, ignoring the awkward coughing of the receptionist behind the counter because as far as Eren was concerned he was owed at least this much by now.

“Alright,” Levi said as he pulled back leaving Eren blinking a little dazed and out of sorts – it’d been a while and Levi was kind of a fantastic kisser. “Get your fucking ass in gear. We’re wasting time.”

For a man barely pulling in at five-foot-three he somehow managed to look seriously intimidating as he rattled his way out of the reception with his suitcase behind him. Eren followed after him with his arm hoisted high in a sling and a bemused look of fondness on his face because Levi didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t adjusting his speed for Eren’s shabby little body to keep pace with.

“So the plan is?” He asked as Levi shoved open the hospital door.

“Drop my shit off and check in at the hotel,” Levi said promptly. “And then if we feel like it we might swing back to your place and pick up some shit before you spend the night. We’ll see.” 

Eren blinked and stumbled a little as he faltered in his steps. “I’m staying with you tonight?”

Levi looked at him like he was stupid. “Obviously, dipshit. I’m not staying in your dorm room. I’ve seen that shit when I webcam you. Disgusting.”

“I cleaned,” Eren protested although he wasn’t actually complaining because a luxury hotel suite and Levi sounded a little bit like heaven right about now.

“Your definition of cleaning and my definition of cleaning are very different things,” Levi said as he hailed a cab. “Oh, also Armin called while you were talking to the doctor this morning. You need to call your sister.”

“Why did Armin call _you_? Since when were you two that close?” The second half of the sentence finally caught up with him. “Woah, woah. What do you mean call my sister? Did somebody _tell_ her?”

“Because you’d definitely be able to hide your arm when she comes down next week,” Levi snorted.

“ _Yes_ ,” Eren said emphatically. “Oh my god, she’s going to _murder_ me. You have no idea.”

“Oh,” Levi said darkly. “I have some idea. Trust me. I was halfway to hiring a professional hitman myself when I got the call.” Levi considered him for a second. “I still am.”

“That’s not like you, paying somebody else to do your dirty work.” Eren smiled, swaying so he could nudge Levi with his shoulder. “I’ve been under the impression you had six or seven dead interns buried under your apartment by now.”

“Only the ones who really piss me off,” Levi said easily. “I’m sure I could find room for you.”

“But who would you cuddle in your sleep?” Eren said innocently. “I didn’t realize you were a cuddler Levi.”

“Shut your fucking face before I shut it for you,” Levi suggested as a taxi pulled up beside them.

“No, I think you should shut it for me, if you know what I mean.” Eren threw in a wink for good measure and Levi shot him a truly exasperated expression.

“You are so fucking cheesy it’s making me sick,” he informed him but that didn’t stop him from reaching up and doing just what he’d threatened. 

.

The call to Mikasa went about as well as Eren thought it was going to.

“ _I_ _’m going to change my ticket and come down tomorrow_ ,” Mikasa said as Eren sat forlornly on a couch in the fancy reception of the hotel Levi was staying at.

“No, don’t do that,” Eren said with all the patience he could muster. “I’m fine, Mikasa. I’m already out of hospital anyway.”

“ _You need supervision_ ,” she insisted.

“And I have it,” Eren said even though it was at the tip of his tongue to launch into a long tirade about being an adult and not needing to be treated like he was a two year old child made of glass.

“ _I don’t trust that boyfriend of yours_ ,” she snapped, saying the word ‘boyfriend’ like somebody might say ‘committed criminal and documented kicker of puppies’.

“Yeah well, tough luck,” Eren sighed. “Mikasa if you cancel your tickets to get here earlier I’m not letting you in my room. You’re being ridiculous. I’m a little sore not dying.”

“ _They broke your arm_ ,” Mikasa hissed. “ _I_ _’m going to_ –.”

“No,” Eren said shortly. “Look, it’s over and done with. I’m going to enjoy my time with Levi and you’re going to come down next week _like you planned_ and everybody is going to be happy and everything is going to be rainbows and sunshine.”

There was the sound of light footsteps and Eren looked up to see Levi leaning against the wall beside him swinging a set of room keys around his index finger. He gestured towards the phone Eren had propped against his ear as if to say _going well?_

Eren shook his head sourly. “Look, I’ve got to go, okay?” Eren said into the phone. “I’ll –.”

“ _Is he there_?” Mikasa asked and Eren blinked.

“Uh, if you mean –.”

“ _Yes, Eren. I_ _’m talking about your boyfriend._ ”

“Um,” Eren said uncertainly. “Yes?”

“ _Put him on_.”

Eren felt his heart stop. “You want –.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Mikasa said impatiently. “ _I want to talk to your boyfriend_.”

“His name is Levi,” Eren said automatically and Levi stirred a little beside him.

“Does she want to talk to me?” He asked, and Eren had no damn clue how Levi knew that without so much as a word.

Eren pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed it into the wrinkled fluff of his sling to cover the receiver. “She’s being ridiculous and overprotective again,” he said awkwardly. “You don’t actually have to.”

“Did I say I didn’t want to?” Levi said with a raised eyebrow. “Just give me the fucking phone.”

Eren passed it over with minimal resistance but feeling a little like he just started a third world war.

Levi settled comfortably against the wall and raised Eren’s phone to his ear. “Heard you wanted to talk to me,” he said bluntly and Eren cringed a little at the tinny sound of Mikasa’s voice at the other end of the cell although he could only make out the whispering of noise.

“Yeah, I am,” Levi said. “Uh-huh. I know.” He paused for a moment and Eren would have given anything to know what was being said on the opposite end of the call. Levi’s face was impassive as ever but the way his brows furrowed above the bridge of his nose just slightly made it very difficult to continue breathing.

This was his boyfriend talking to the only real blood family Eren really considered himself to have left.

Levi shifted a little suddenly, a rippling of muscle and tension as he straightened up to stand right. “He’s a fucking little shit but he can take care of himself,” he said shortly. “I trust him, which is more than I can say it seems for you.”

It wasn’t going well. That much was clear. Eren felt like his heart might just beat out of his chest; whether that was from nerves or the medication they’d given him at the hospital he couldn’t tell.

“Levi,” Eren whispered and gestured for him to return the phone but Levi just waved him off irritably as he listened stoically to whatever Mikasa was saying on the other end.

“No, and I don’t fucking need to. I’m his boyfriend not his babysitter.”

It was oddly silent for a moment and Eren thought for a second Mikasa might have actually just hung up on him when all of a sudden Levi went stiff and his eyes flickered to Eren’s face like he’d been shocked by something dangerous and electric.

Levi didn’t look frightened exactly, maybe a little startled, but the expression on his face was a first and Eren would kill to know exactly what Mikasa had said to get him looking like that. “What?” Eren whispered, leaning in closer so that he could smell the bed rumpled smell of Levi’s day-old aftershave and the soft whisk of his soap.

Levi hesitated for a moment and then – in an almost uncharacteristically gentle movement – raised a hand to cup Eren’s cheek, stroking his thumb softly along his face. Eren was a little surprised but not unpleasantly so, raising one of his own hands to trap Levi’s against the warmth of his skin.

“Yeah,” he said and Eren didn’t know what he was saying – what Mikasa had asked him – but Levi sounded soft and thoughtful and his eyes were locked with Eren’s. “Yeah, I do.”

“What –?” Eren started to ask but Levi was already hanging up the phone before the words were fully out of his mouth and leaning down to press their lips together firmly but briefly. By the time Eren got his head together enough to respond Levi was already pulling away with one last quick peck.

Eren wondered if Levi was going to make a habit of that – driving Eren crazy by starting and finishing things so quickly that Eren could barely keep up.

“What was that for?” He asked as Levi took his good arm to hoist him off the couch.

“Nothing in particular,” Levi replied as he slipped the phone casually into the back pocket of Eren’s jeans. “C’mon. I’ve got the keys for the room. Get your fucking ass in gear and stop burning daylight.”

Eren followed after him, slightly bemused, confused and a little exasperated at the constant stream of quick kisses he’d been dealing with since the night before. If Levi was planning to sexually frustrate him to death as revenge for the whole hospital thing then he was honestly succeeding.

“What’s that look for?” Levi asked as he pressed the call button for the elevator. “You look like someone pissed in your cheerios.”

“Oh, shut up,” Eren muttered, scrubbing his good hand through his hair and trying not to look so flustered. “It’s all your fault anyway.”

Levi leered at him. “Is it now?” He all but purred, stepping a little closer to Eren. “I should probably take responsibility for that.”

“Yeah,” Eren said because words were in short supply when Levi was looking at him like that. “Maybe you should. And I’d suggest you start with –.”

He was cut off by the soft _ding_ of the elevator arriving and Levi backed up a pace or two just as the doors slid open to emit a small huddle of onlookers who cast curious glances at the pair as they shuffled out into the reception.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Eren sighed. “We’ve got no luck.”

Levi smirked as he beckoned him into the elevator. “You’re just impatient is all.”

“Can you blame me?” Eren asked as he trailed in after him. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting? Months, Levi. _Months_. I fucking swear I’ve been waiting for this so long I should be grey.”

“Shut your fucking trap. Jesus Christ, I was kind of there for that waiting too. If anything it’s your fault I haven’t jumped you six ways to Sunday already. I had plans before you had to go land your dumb ass in hospital.”

Eren smiled as Levi hit the button for their floor. “Plans, hey?” He asked as innocently as possible and the way Levi’s eyes flashed when he hit that particular tone was information he stored away for later use. “Anything you’d like to share?”

“Oh,” Levi said faux nonchalantly. “I’ll find a way to clue you in later, I’m sure.”

And they might have been standing alone in an elevator in rumpled clothing and tired from a night of shitty sleep, but those words right there made everything seem like heaven.

That was definitely a promise Eren intended to make Levi keep.


	17. The hotel initiation

“This is weird.”

“Well, it's certainly not sexy, I'll grant you that.”

In any other situation Eren might have been offended at being considered unsexy as he sprawled half naked on a bed with his boyfriend straddled shirtless across his lap.

“Fuck, would you hold still? You're like a goddamn toddler.”

“I can't help it,” Eren huffed as Levi pulled his good shoulder so he sat up a little straighter. “It kind of tickles.”

“We'll see how much my fist in your face tickles in a moment,” Levi muttered irritably under his breath, but didn't look up from what he was doing so Eren figured he was safe enough to maybe chance another sentence or two.

“Is this really necessary?”

Levi snapped his head up and narrowed his eyes like Eren had just asked him the dumbest thing imaginable, but with a line of duct-tape wedged firmly in his teeth as he tore it free from the roll the effect was mildly ruined. “Eren Jaeger, if you want to get naked with me any time in the immediate future you  _will_ let me tape this plastic bag over you arm and shove you in a fucking shower.” 

“It's just...” Eren fumbled for words as Levi smoothed the last line of tape down against his skin, sealing the plastic up just above his elbow.

“Just?” Levi prompted.

“I feel ridiculous.”

“You _look_ ridiculous,” Levi assured him, patting him on the cheek like he thought he was being a fucking help or something before swinging himself up and off Eren's lap. “Should have thought of that before you went and broke your arm.” 

Eren groaned and flopped gently back onto the bed. “You're just not going to let this go are you?”

“Not until I feel like you've properly repented,” Levi agreed, kicking Eren's ankles lightly. “Now get off your ass and come take a shower with me. You smell like dirt and hospital and I can't appreciate your stomach muscles when there's dried blood on them.”

Eren threw his good arm over his face to smother his smile against the crook of his elbow because Levi had this way of talking – blunt and with no concern for others – that just made it difficult to take things like the prospect of naked shower time with your incredibly attractive boyfriend seriously.

Which was maybe for the better, Eren supposed, as Levi swaggered off to the bathroom and Eren heard the sharp hiss of the shower starting. Because Levi was gorgeous and shirtless and on his way to becoming pants-less and Eren had no clue how he'd wound up lucky enough to be showering with the most attractive man he'd ever known in a five-star hotel neither of them had paid a cent for, but he'd thank every deity under the sun if he got lucky enough to keep this kind of happiness for a while.

“Are you coming or what?” Levi called and Eren hurriedly scrambled off the bed and limped his way to the bathroom.

Levi was leaning into what Eren thought was an excessively big shower, honestly speaking, turning the taps and feeling the water pressure, belt unbuckled and shoulders damp a little from stray sprays. Eren paused by the sink, and took a moment to admire the flex of Levi's muscles, the way they coiled and uncoiled every time he moved.

Nobody whose job involved a lot of sitting at a desk all day and drank that much coffee had any right to be that fit. 

“Enjoying the view?” Levi asked, peering over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow as he withdrew from the shower and shook his hands dry.

Eren grinned and tried to look as innocent as possible. “Don't know what you're talking about.”

Levi snorted and stepped forward to wiggle his fingers into the waist of Eren's jeans and tug them lightly. “Stop talking and start stripping.”

“Aye, aye Captain,” Eren said and gave a snappy salute with his good hand.

Levi closed his eyes and buried his face in Eren's shoulder. “You're a fucking dork,” Levi said, but Eren could feel him smiling into his skin. “Why would you go and ruin the mood like that?”

“You love it,” Eren smirked.

“And you still stink,” Levi said, stepping back and shoving Eren lightly. “Shower. Now.” Before Eren could come up with another sarcastic quip Levi turned around and shed his pants in one swift shirk down his legs, kicking them to the corner and _bam._

Naked.

Eren stood stock still as Levi stretched easily, completely at ease as he made his way back to the shower while Eren worked on breathing through what suddenly felt like a very dry throat.

Levi glanced back. “So are you planning on showering in your pants or what? Water's going to get cold if you stand there all day, Jaeger.”

Eren nearly tripped himself in his hurry to unbutton his jeans, fingers slipping uselessly on catches and zips – trying to strip with one arm out of commission was nothing short of an Olympic sport – and finally managed to wiggle them down his thighs in what was probably the least erotic striptease the hotel had ever seen, but eventually they joined Levi's crinkled and abandoned in the corner and he joined Levi in the shower.

The feel of the water was amazing on his skin, chasing away the scratchy feeling of dirt and hospital sheets; the push of Levi's shoulder's brushing against his chest and the warmth of water filled him with an almost awe inspiring contentedness.

“Wow,” Eren said, because he was at least eighty percent sure the shower was giving him a religious experience or something right now. “Just... Wow, you know?”

“Yeah,” Levi sighed, understanding in his amazing fantastical way exactly what Eren was saying, tilting his head back and running his hands through his hair so that he looked like a glamor model or something and Eren was once again conscious of the fact that they were both very naked and very close.

As if sensing Eren's less than innocent intentions Levi stepped away, reaching for the expensive looking body wash sitting on a jutted edge of the shower. “Shower first,” he said when Eren made a sound of protest. “You still look like crap.”

“Thanks.”

“Don't be a shit. You'll feel better for it, trust me. “

Levi squirted a dollop of the soap in his palm and set the bottle down, turning back to Eren as he rubbed it between his hands, looking at Eren appraisingly, eyes skimming over his shoulders and chest and –

“Are you staring at my dick?” Eren asked.

“Yes,” Levi said unapologetically. “It's right there, so yes. I'm staring at your dick. To be fair, your dick likes it.”

“ _Levi_!” Eren hissed and Levi snorted, stepping in close to run his soapy hands up along Eren's chest as he started work up a thick soapy lather.

“Relax,” Levi said as he eased his fingers against Eren's skin in a way that was unnecessary but undeniably nice. “I'd be more offended if you didn't get a boner while naked in the shower with me, so your dick's doing a good job as far as I'm concerned.”

“Oh my god,” Eren said and hoped his face wasn't as red as it felt. “Do you have to, you know... be so blunt about things?”

Levi actually laughed at that. “So what? You want me to replace every second word with a metaphor like we're in a fucking Disney movie? I'm glad your ding-dong is getting a ding-a-ling because of it's uncensored proximity to my ding-dong.”

“Oh my god. _Oh my god_.”

“Call me Levi,” Levi joked in what was doubtlessly the cheesiest thing Eren had ever heard this side of three in the morning soap opera drama.

“You are so bad at this romance thing,” Eren groaned and Levi smirked as he pushed him up against the shower wall, running his hands thoroughly over his sides and his chest, washing Eren with such gentle attention and soft fingers it was heart wrenching. “You don't have to do that,” he said awkwardly without really meaning it.

“You've got one arm in a garbage bag,” Levi reminded him as he scrubbed suds up and down Eren's body. “If you think you can do this on your own go ahead.” Eren didn't say anything. “Yeah, that's what I thought. So shut up and enjoy it.”

Enjoying it wasn't the problem. Okay, no. That wasn't entirely right. Eren was enjoying it – _that_ was the problem.

The lower Levi's hands sunk – massaging down his waist, thumbs curling to rub over his hip bones – the harder it was to stop his skin from going hot and tight and his breath from coming out in warm puffs against his lips.

“Levi,” Eren warned as one of his hands skated dangerously close down the inside of his thigh.

Levi looked up at him innocently, wet hair pushed just out of his eyes and eyebrows quirked like he had no idea what Eren was talking about. “What?” He asked, as he slowly made his way downward until he was on his knees with water falling like a curtain around them. Eren sucked in a deep breath that was almost painful because with Levi that close he was kind of breathing on his dick; deliberately long whispers of cold air against sensitive skin.

“You know what,” Eren said, completely mortified because he was ridiculously turned on and Levi hadn't even so much as _touched_ him; not in the way that Eren would like him to at least.

Levi grinned and slid his hands right in close, long fingers framed out on Eren's hips so that his back was tight against the wall. “Relax, okay.”

“I'm trying,” Eren breathed out as the pads of Levi's fingers rubbed against his skin, “but you're not making it easy.”

“Good,” Levi said, and let one hand fall to circle Eren's dick.

It wasn't like Eren hadn't ever had anybody touch him like this before, but a few messy handjobs at parties in highschool weren't really at the same level as having your gorgeous boyfriend down on his knees before you, water washing warm over your shoulders while he moved his hand with just the right amount of pressure and tension, palm rough and fingertips damp.

“Holy shit,” Eren hissed when Levi tightened his hand and brought his thumb up to swipe along the tip, hips jerking a little so that it was only the firm press of Levi's left hand on the top of his thigh that kept him from moving.

“Stay still,” Levi demanded, which wasn't fair – really, really wasn't fair – because two seconds later he looked up into Eren's eyes, licked his lips and took Eren's dick into his mouth.

Eren's brain short-circuited; there wasn't really another way to phrase it. Everything came down to the feel of wet warmth, Levi's fingers wrapped around his base while his mouth worked up and down, tongue sliding, pushing – the soft silky pop when Levi pulled off to mouth lower, fingers working expertly in a way that might make Eren jealous when he had the brain space to think about it, but right now just felt good, _so_ good -

“Levi,” Eren said, and his voice warbled. He reached up with his left hand only to abort when he heard the tell-tale crinkling of the plastic bag, reaching instead with jelly-like fingers of his good hand to tangle fingertips in Levi's hair. “Levi,” he panted again. “I'm – I can't …”

“You're close already, huh?” Levi murmured with an embarrassing amount of interest, peering up from beneath the sodden bangs Eren had twisted out of his eyes. He pumped his hand again, lipping along the very tip of Eren's dick and Eren let out what was very nearly a whimper. “It's fine, you can come.”

“Don't just say it like that,” Eren ground out, trying desperately to stop himself from thrusting uncontrollably as much as Levi's splayed hand on his hip would allow. It was embarrassing, but Eren was tired and sore and frankly much too aroused from just being with _Levi_ to have ever had a hope of lasting beyond a handful of minutes.

Levi's eyes sparked at Eren's words, and – like he considered them to be a challenge – he leant forward and took all of Eren's cock down in one go.

Eren's brain exploded, everything inside of him went tight and he fancied he could see all the different signals firing off in his brain in a wave of black-purple-blue. Distantly he was aware of how tight his grip in Levi's hair must be, of how painful Levi's grip on _him_ must be, but everything was secondary to the pulsing wave of pleasure that reached a crescendo that ripped all the air from him in the sound of Levi's name on his lips.

When Eren finally came back down from his high, he was sagged against the shower wall breathing like he'd run a marathon, the water too hot on his skin and Levi slowly getting back to his feet in the unsteady wobble of Eren's vision, inelgeantly wiping the back of his mouth with his wrist.

“You okay?” He asked Eren and Eren could only nod bonelessly because _holy hell –_ if this is what sex with Levi was going to be like all the time than Eren didn't know how he was going to continue to function.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, just...” Eren blinked, only to realize that Levi wasn't even in the fucking shower anymore. Alarmed, Eren straightened up so quickly he almost fell. “What – Levi?”

His answer was the sound of the sink tap running and when Eren scrambled open the shower door it was to find Levi hunched butt naked over the bathroom basin still sporting a semi and spitting out a mouthful of foamy toothpaste down the drain.

For a moment Eren just stood confused, half in the shower and half out as Levi rinsed his mouth one last time and dried his mouth on a handtowel on the bench before sauntering back towards the shower. “Sorry,” he said. “Always brush after a blowjob, hygiene 101. Now what were you saying?”

.

After Levi's frankly unromantic conclusion to the shower the pair of them dried off before shuffling naked back to the bed to cuddle under the sheets like Eren had been wanting to since the day he first saw Levi's face on his computer screen all those weeks back, trading lazy anecdotes and fleeting touches as they sunk lower and lower into the pillows and the blankets climbed higher and higher around their bare shoulders.

“Okay,” Eren said, one arm over Levi's waist and the covers pulled up so high that he could barely make out Levi's shower fluffed hair against the pillows, “Stupidest thing you've ever done?”

Levi made a muffled groan and snuggled further into Eren's shoulder. “Illegal or legal?”

“Okay, _now_ I'm curious.”

“I'm thirty-four years old, of course I've broken the fucking law a time or six,” Levi said. “But if we're talking legal then it's probably the time Hanji convinced me to shave off Erwin's eyebrows in his sleep.”

“You did _what_?”

“We were young and stupid and drunk and it seemed like a good idea at the time. You haven't seen how big they are, okay. They could star in their own fucking horror movie. When he woke up I thought he was going to kill me. The next day he shifted all our stuff out into the yard, just like copy-pasted our damn rooms out there. We had to sleep on the front lawn for a week.”

“Oh my god,” Eren said, trying and failing not to laugh, squirming when Levi pinched him a little on his side. “How did the three of you ever survive living together?”

“Sheer will power and lots of alcohol mostly,” Levi said and it would have been funny if it didn't sound so morbidly serious, then, without so much as taking a breath he asked: “you?”

Eren thought for a moment. “The first time I got drunk with Jean we wound up going through the drive through at Mcdonalds with him in a trolley and me pushing it, only we thought it was Burger King so the thing we wanted to order wasn't on the menu. Obviously, we were too drunk to realize that though and when the server told us we should probably leave Jean burst into tears. I didn't want to go home empty handed though, so I kind of snatched the bag being handed to the guy in front of us and took off. Long story short, that's how I wound up pushing Jean down a highway at three in the morning while he cried his eyes out with three guys in Mcdonalds uniforms chasing me.”

Levi gave a low whistle. “Wow. Just, wow Jaeger. I didn't know you had it in you.”

“We were young and stupid and drunk and it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Eren said just to hear Levi give a surprised laugh against his skin.

Levi propped himself up on his elbow, letting the blankets fall away around his bare shoulders as he glared at Eren without any real venom. “You're such a shit. What else have you got hiding up your sleeve? If there's any shotgun marriages waiting for you in Vegas, I feel like you should probably tell me.”

Eren smiled sweetly up at him. “That'd ruin the surprise and all the future custody battles we have to look froward to.”

Levi shivered. “Don't even joke about that.”

“Not a fan of kids, huh?” Eren asked as Levi flopped back down with his face buried in the crook of Eren's shoulder and neck and an arm coming up and around to slip behind Eren's head and tangle gentle fingers in his hair.

“When they stop being revolting little shits who don't know how to wash the crap off their hands I might reconsider my stance,” Levi muttered, but his attention was already quite obviously slipping away as he placed a soft kiss just below Eren's ear and another one lower at the curve of his neck.

Eren shivered a little and reached his good arm to weave his fingers into the soft strands at the back of Levi's head, pulling him in closer so that Levi's lips continued to trace down his neck, little kisses going from the hollow of his throat to the tight skin of his collarbone with a kind of gentle earnestness that was almost at odds with the rough want and pressure of the shower.

“We should probably go get something to eat soon,” Eren said and Levi made a small noise of affirmation against his shoulder but otherwise showed no inclination to stop the way his lips moved against his skin. Eren tightened his grip in Levi's hair and tried without much success not to sound so out of breath. “Levi, we can't possibly stay in bed all day.”

“I don't know, I think we should try it just to find out.”

“You haven't eaten since you got in. You're going to pass out or something at this rate.”

Levi paused for a moment and then sighed, pulling back after straining up to place one last lingering proper kiss on Eren's lips and looking adorably annoyed at the need for things like food and sustenance. “You're such a fucking nag,” he said as he tossed the covers back.

“Excuse me for not wanting to go back to the hospital like fours after we just left it because you can't look after yourself,” Eren huffed without any real malice, sitting up right and watching as Levi got to his feet and stretched, muscles in his back taunt and exactly the right kind of entertainment to watch as Levi crossed the room to grab a change of clothes from his suitcase.

“Oi, get your ass out of bed and start getting dressed,” he said after a moment of Eren watching him lazily from the pillows, the way he shimmied his underwear up over his thighs to snap tight at his hips.

“First you want me naked now you can't wait for me to get dressed,” Eren muttered as Levi threw Eren's clothes at him so that they flopped at the foot of the bed. “Make up your mind already.”

“You're the one who wanted to go out,” Levi reminded him.

“Because you don't look after yourself.” Eren fumbled into his jeans one handed but trying to slip a shirt on over his cast without help was significantly more difficult.

“Oh, don't even get me started about not looking after yourself,” Levi warned, shrugging into a shirt and turning around probably to give Eren another piece of his mind only to see him hopelessly tangled in his shirt like he was four years old and had forgotten how to get dressed by himself. “You're hopeless, I swear,” Levi sighed, as he crossed the room to help.

“Not my fault,” Eren said, starting to feel like he might just be stuck in an endless loop of that until he died. “Arm, cast, clothing. None of these things really mix.”

Levi rolled his eyes and helped Eren wrestle the sleeve over the bulky cast before snapping the buttons closed with what Eren was starting to realize were surprisingly deft fingers as – wow, he was going to stop that thought there before he wound up throwing this whole food thing out the window.

“Good to go?” Levi asked as he smoothed his hands down the front of Eren's shirt before reaching up to try and brush his hair out of his eyes with a disapproving cluck of his tongue. “Fuck, I have no idea why you always look like you just spent a week in hibernation.”

“Yeah just –.” Eren reached up to bat Levi's hand away from his hair before weaving their fingers together solidly. “Yeah, now I'm good to go.”

“You're such a fucking sap,” Levi grunted.

Eren didn't comment on how Levi only seemed to hold his hand tighter.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major credits to my ever patient and amazing girlfriend Imanza for her help with everything this chapter. Without her this chapter might never have come. 
> 
> And major credits also to anybody and everybody reading this for your support and patience in the wait for chapters. I'm eternally grateful to all of you and I hope this chapter leaves you satisfied after such a gap.


	18. The third wheel interruption

They wound up picking toppings off greasy pizza slices at a nondescript pizza and pasta place downtown for lunch – many, many blocks away from the diner where Eren had his run-in. 

“You know, this seems like extreme over-caution,” Eren said casually as he worked some anchovies off his supreme. “I think the chances of running into a similar situation only the next day is pretty much slim to none.” 

“Shut the fuck up and eat,” Levi grunted. “And knowing you and your shitty ass luck you'd probably run into the same guys and start a fucking battle royale. I don't know how many new shades of purple your face can turn before we have to start classifying it as modern art or something.” 

“Well, running into the douche bags who started the whole thing seems unlikely because they're still in hospital.” 

Levi paused with his fork hovering an inch from his mouth – because of course Levi was the kind of person that ate his pizza with silverware – and quirked his eyebrow.“You put them in hospital?” 

“Hey, they started the trend,” Eren said a little defensively. “I would have been fine with just giving them a face only a mother could love, but they're the ones that started waving bottles and breaking people’s arms. And technically we put  each other  in hospital, so it's about even in my opinion.” 

“Don't remind me,” Levi said sourly, pointing at him accusingly with the tines of his fork. “You still look like absolute hell.” 

Eren flashed him a charming smile. “You don't think the Prussian blue of my stitches works well with this shirt?” 

“This isn't an episode of  _ Project Runway _ , don't you go throwing around colours like an artist gone manic.” 

“ It's not blood orange, it's red ,” Eren said in a dramatically pitched voice and Levi looked about one more sentence away from giving Eren another set of stitches to match his first. 

“I can't take you anywhere,” Levi muttered under his breath and Eren grinned a little deliriously – partly because he thought some of the hospital meds might still be swirling around in his bloodstream and partly because the fact that Levi  could take him anywhere now instead of just making vague promises about it still made him feel like a fifteen year old girl on her first real date. 

“What?” Levi snapped. 

“What what?” 

“Why are you... grinning like that?” 

“My face is always like this,” Eren insisted. “I'm just naturally a smiley person.” Upon seeing Levi's dubious face he corrected himself. “Okay, I'm naturally a sort of smiley person. In the right circumstances. Around the right people.” 

“Eren, you have so many anger management issues you put some of the shit I saw and dealt with when I was your age to shame.” 

“Okay, now that's the start of a story I'd really like to hear.” 

“Another time,” Levi said vaguely and Eren didn't push because today was about pizza and cheesy jokes, and maybe sneaking in a few kisses once Eren was finished eating and he could convince Levi he wasn't likely to contract some kind of pepperoni-based virus from him. 

(Eren had never met someone so adamantly against a few harmless slices of spiced meat. Levi had just about shanked the server when he read back the order wrong.) 

Eren had just opened his mouth to make some kind of snappy comeback about as much when he heard the sound of his name being called. For a moment he thought that maybe Levi was having a bit of a volume control issue or something, but a few seconds of sluggish brain ticking and the surprised look on Levi's face and Eren realized that the voice had come from across the restaurant. 

“Oi,  Eren ,” somebody hollered again and a deep sinking in Eren's stomach let him know that he recognized the rise and fall of the way his name rolled off the shouter's tongue.“Oh fuck no,” he muttered under his breath because there was absolutely only one person alive on this earth that could fill Eren with such innate and instant dread just by the sound of his voice alone. 

“Yo, Jeager, out for dinner with the hubby I see,” Jean said, appearing at their table and pulling up a chair from the next table over like he'd been invited (he hadn't). He flashed Eren a disgusting shit-eating grin.

“What are you doing here?” Eren asked, perhaps a little more aggressively than he intended but the question was pretty well deserved.

“Don't get your panties in a knot. It's not like I planned this or anything. I was just stopping by to grab some pizza like any self respecting university student with a deadline for an essay in two hours. This is complete coincidence, I assure you.” 

“You can't sit with us,” Eren insisted. 

“Well, somebody has been watching too much  _ Mean Girls _ . And I can sit wherever I want. Land of the free and all that, Jaeger.” Before Eren could so much as get offended at the  _ everything _ that had just come out of Jean's mouth he'd turned his attention to an amused albeit irritated looking Levi. “Jean Kirschtein,” he said, offering a hand. “You must be the long distance booty-call. I've heard a lot about you.”

Levi's eyebrows sky rocketed but he didn't look nearly as offended as he did amused. Eren thought it was probably because Levi got off on whatever mortified Eren. “I could say the same about you,” he said to Jean but made no effort take his hand – Levi would never shake hands with someone he met in a pizza place, too much grease and finger food to keep track of and not enough wet wipes available for discrete and instant satisfaction.

There was an awkward moment – for Jean, not so much for the rest of them – before Jean coughed slightly and pulled his hand away, clearly going for a smooth recovery with the way he slid his fingers through his hair like he'd just been stretching and that had been his intention all along. “Anyway, I met you in the hospital yesterday. Sort of. Well, I was present in the room for a little bit when you gave Jaeger a dressing down for being such a dumb shit.” 

“I don't know if you'd call that meeting,” Levi said. 

Jean shrugged. “Close enough. I feel like I know you already anyway. Eren won't shut the fuck up about you. It's Levi this and Levi that every day, all day. It's like that time in high school where Eren went abroad for a week and all we could get out of Mikasa was a play by play of how Eren was doing across the border.” 

“I've been on the receiving end of the sisterly interrogation of misplaced good intentions already,” Levi said dryly and Eren's brain was short-circuiting slightly because Levi and Jean were not just _talking_ – they were having a legitimate conversation.

They were getting along .

Truth be told, Eren was feeling slightly betrayed. Levi was  his  boyfriend. He was meant to hate Jean on principle because Eren was sure he'd told him about the time Jean had make-believe broken-up with him at a party just to ruin his chances with a guy Eren had been flirting with. For the next six weeks everybody who'd been in the room when Jean slapped him and called him “ _ a cheating hussy that my momma warned me about _ ” treated him like he was a convicted war criminal or something. Trying to explain that he and Jean hadn't been dating and Jean was just an asshole who liked to make him miserable had yielded no results. 

Actually no, not true. That had gotten him lectured by a girl he shared his English class with who seemed convinced Jean was the heroine of a Jane Austen novel. 

(Two months later he'd called Jean's house phone pretending to be Planned Parenthood asking after the irresponsible boyfriend of the young girl who'd called in the day previously, but it had fallen through because Jean's mother had laughed herself to tears at the thought that her son would ever be smooth enough to get his dick anywhere near a girl.) 

But basically the point Eren was trying to make was that Levi and Jean should not be bonding like this. 

“Jean,” Eren blurted. “Good to see you and all, thanks again for the car the other day. But if you'd just, you know, leave and stop ruining my meal I'd be so grateful. So, so, grateful.” 

Jean sniffed. “I can tell how grateful you are. Ever think I might just be worried about you? Maybe I just want to check up on you and make sure the stitches in your head are just a temporary addition to your wardrobe. They really don't go with your shirt.” 

Levi actually snorted into his drink and had to cough for a moment before getting his voice back. “You two are more alike than I would have figured given Eren talks about you like you kidnapped his fucking kitten or something.” 

“I'm wounded,” Jean said, and he did sound truly offended. 

“I don't think Levi was serious about you being a kitten kidnapper,” Eren offered impatiently. 

“No, not at that dumbass. Who the fuck would want to be told they're like  you , Jaeger. Christ, it disturbs me just thinking about it.” Jean shuddered for dramatic effect and Levi continued looking more amused than Eren thought appropriate. 

“You're not even going to defend me?” He asked his boyfriend and Levi shrugged ambivalently. 

“I've got solid proof you can take a beer bottle to the head and then put two people in hospital; I figure you can defend your own honour at this point. And honestly, he's kind of got a point. You are a little shit, I can see how he'd be offended.” 

Eren rounded on Jean. “Alright, you've converted my boyfriend with your lies. Now it's seriously time for you to go before I call Marco and tell him about that time in the shopping center with the mop and the restroom.” 

Jean looked stricken. “You promised that would stay between us.” 

“Yeah, well, tough. Maybe in the future stop crashing my dates with my boyfriend and I won't tell yours why you can no longer go into certain branches of Walmart.” 

Jean sighed and finally got up from the table, swinging long legs off the chair he'd been straddling backwards and earning a dirty look from a passing waitress. “Well, anyway it was nice getting to meet you,” he said to Levi, almost frighteningly polite. “I think the group was considering getting together tonight to celebrate Eren's release from hospital and bully him into introducing you, just so you know.” 

“I haven't heard anything about this,” Eren protested, glaring irritably because yeah, he loved his friends, and yeah, he did plan on introducing them all to Levi properly  _ eventually _ – but right now Eren wanted time alone with Levi, a chance to catch up on the hours they'd missed already because of Eren's hospital stunt. 

And okay, he might have also wanted to try the whole getting naked together thing again and see if they could make it past sloppy shower blow-jobs and into something more concrete. 

“Sounds good,” Levi said and Eren whipped around to gape at him. 

“Awesome,” Jean said, grinning downright maliciously as he kicked lightly at the leg of Eren's chair. “Armin will probably text you later. I warn you now,” he said, turning to Eren this time, “that if you try and wiggle your way out of it somehow Armin will  not  be pleased.” 

“You know who isn't pleased? Me. The guy with a broken arm and six stitches in his forehead who might have had  plans  tonight.” Jean openly laughed at him and left without another word. “ _ I'm telling Marco about Walmart _ _ , _ ” Eren bellowed after his retreating back but Jean just waved a hand lazily on his way out. 

“Nice guy,” Levi said lightly. 

“Traitor,” Eren insisted without missing a beat. “You are a dirty traitor and I'm starting to rethink this whole relationship.” 

Levi rolled his eyes at him. “Relax, I'm just fucking with you now.” 

“It didn't seem like it,” Eren muttered, fully aware he was sounding like a petulant twelve year old but somehow completely incapable of caring considering how quickly his day was going down the drain. “You two seemed to hit it off just fine.” 

“Oh, stop being a fucking drama queen. I made small talk with the guy for five minutes, not promised to make him godfather of our first born child.” 

“Don't be stupid. Neither of us have the hips for birthing.” 

“The point is,” Levi said, tapping his fork lightly against the edge of his plate and looking somewhat irritably and somewhat indulgently at Eren, “one night of socializing with your friends isn't going to kill us. I'm here for over a whole week, Eren.” 

Realistically, from a point of view that involved more logic than Eren really possessed when it came to Levi, Eren knew he was right. “Yeah, I know, but...” 

Levi sighed and set aside his cutlery. “Eren,” he said and his voice was a tad softer. “You want to know the truth? I  _ want _ to go out and meet your friends tonight. I want to meet your friends  _ period _ . Sue me for wanting to know as much about you as I can. Do you have a fucking problem with that?” 

Well, of course Eren didn't have a problem with it  _ now _ . How was anybody supposed to have a problem with their significant other making dramatic pizza-tabletop confessions like that while looking at them earnestly with sleep-tired but honest silver eyes.

Levi was getting dangerously good at managing Eren like this. It was almost sickening how he could turn Eren's insides into a squirmy mess with a little eye contact and a few well-chosen words. 

Eren was seriously going to have to work on not being such a push-over or their future was going to be full of Levi just  looking  at him and Eren offering to jump off cliffs or give him an impromptu blow-job or anything else that Levi might feasibly want from him in that moment. 

“Okay,” Eren said, mouth a little dry and suddenly overly conscious of the grease on his fingers because he'd really have liked nothing more than to reach out and take Levi's hand right now. “Okay, yeah. No problem. We can do that if you want.” 

“Good,” Levi said with a kind of finality that told Eren they were done talking about this – for now at least. “Now hurry the fuck up and eat your pizza. It's getting late and I want to see how long I have to debauch you before dinner.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thanks to the lovely anon over on tumblr earlier today for you adorably sweet comment, and a happy birthday to the perpetually amazing mybangsareblonde for your approaching Erwin-day - I mean birthday.


	19. The group introduction

They didn’t wind up doing any debauching after lunch. Not because they, you know, didn’t _want_ to. But because Eren was visibly nervous about the whole his-boyfriend-meeting-his-everybody and Levi wasn’t the kind of asshole who’d try to pressure Eren into anything when he could tell he wasn’t feeling it.

Not that Eren would have complained, he knew, but Eren was still new at this committed relationship thing and Levi didn’t want him to be anything but a hundred per cent focused and enthusiastic about any and all things he was going to do with him.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Eren had huffed when Levi had given him an abbreviated version of his reasons for not jacking him off the moment they walked in the hotel or whatever it was Eren had been expecting. “I’m not nervous, you’re just imagining things.”

And Levi had just raised an eyebrow and stared at him wordlessly for the few seconds it took for Eren’s face to fall and his gaze to flick sideways away from him.

“Okay, maybe I’m a _little_ nervous. But only like… five out of ten. I’m five nervous. Like, six nervous at the max. Does that make sense?”

Levi had leant down to place a kiss between his eyes and thanked every god he had at his disposal that Eren had a habit of slouching down low and leaning against any and all walls in his immediate vicinity. “Eren, it’s fine. Let’s just chill and wind down for a bit before we go out tonight, alright? We’ll watch whatever bullshit TV show you want and I won’t even complain.”

“Okay, now that’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard,” Eren had sighed, and Levi had bit his lip to keep from smiling because Eren was starting to develop an annoying habit of counting them aloud every time Levi did and he was trying to actively discourage that kind of behavior.

They watched half a season of _Lost_ in the end, which had been confusing enough seeing as how it was season six, but Eren was one of those people that got impatient and skipped; scenes, episodes, anything he didn’t really find important.

It wasn’t like Levi was complaining though, because he’d honestly given up on following the television ten minutes in and had instead chosen to focus on the feeling of Eren’s chest rising and falling beneath his hands and the gentle warmth of Eren curled up –on top of him almost, but so much more comfortable than Levi would have expected given he had over half a head on him.

The happiness he felt like that – smothered in his barely legal boyfriend and watching shit TV – was so intense it was almost frightening.

The hours before the party or whatever Eren was calling it whiled away quicker than Levi would have liked – _6 @ armin’s place, dnt be late jaeger bc armins fussing like a proud mama n u dnt want 2 disappoint him. gotta introduce ur boytoy 2 da inlaws –_ and by about five Levi found himself shaking awake a sleepy Eren who was about as cooperative as your average five year old.

“S’fine,” he slurred, cuddling in close to Levi and yawning against his neck in a way that was absolutely disgusting and Levi did not find adorable in the slightest. He muttered something about being fashionably late – Levi didn’t think Eren had been fashionable a day in his life, and thus probably didn’t have the right to use it as an adjective for anything else – before dozing off again.

Levi wound up stuffing his boyfriend into semi-presentable clothes and winding his own scarf around Eren’s neck because the little shit would probably catch a cold with the slightest chill in the air and the last thing Levi needed right now was another trip to the hospital.

“We are never, ever having kids,” he informed him under his breath once he finally managed to get Eren to stand up for long enough to brush his teeth and Eren gave him a half sheepish and decidedly foamy smile around his toothbrush.

Levi was so focused on fussing around Eren that it wasn’t until he’d shepherded him out the door and into a cab that he realized the swirling in his own gut he’d been feeling for the past half an hour wasn’t actually indigestion from letting Eren kiss him with his greasy pepperoni mouth but might possibly be something like… nerves.

“Levi?”

He blinked, looking up from his lap to see Eren staring at him with a frown.

“Sorry, did you say something?”

Eren sighed and slumped a little lower in his seat. “I sort of figured you weren’t listening. You seem a little out of it.”

Levi narrowed his eyes. “I’m not. You’re the one who was half asleep until ten minutes ago.”

“That’s because you let me nap for too long,” Eren huffed like a petulant toddler. “You said you’d wake me if I fell asleep.”

Levi shrugged because he didn’t quite feel like admitting Eren had looked more than slightly adorable with his head on Levi’s shoulder and the quiet hums of his breath drowning out the background noise. “It was nice to have some silence. Sue me for not wanting to waste it.”

Eren turned his head to the side slightly like he had a chance of hiding the smile Levi could see him struggling against. “ _Anyway_ , I was saying that we could probably just head back to my dorm once we’re done at Armin’s. He only lives a couple minutes out from the school, the lucky bastard.”

Levi frowned. “You don’t want to go back to the hotel?”

“Too far,” Eren said simply. “No offense to your fancy hotel room and all, but I’m not going to feel like doing this trip again once we leave. I want to grab some stuff from my place anyway if I’m going to be hanging out there a lot.” Eren quirked a brow at him. “Unless you think my dorm isn’t good enough for you.”

Levi sighed and elbowed Eren in the side. “We’ll see. So long as it’s not a fucking trash heap again.”

“Okay, that was _one_ time, and I’d had a long week –.”

Eren’s protests were cut short by the squeal of the cab pulling up against the side of the road, and Levi leaned forward to pay the driver while Eren struggled out of the door with as much dignity as he could with his arm plastered to his chest.

The air outside was just on the nice side of brisk when Levi clambered out, and Eren was rocking back on his heels impatiently while he waited for Levi at the curb before leading him off and to a perfectly pleasant looking house.

Levi watched as Eren rapped on the door with his good hand, trying and most likely failing to look at ease.

This was pretty much as ‘meet the family’ as it got with Eren. Levi wasn’t an idiot. He was well aware that Eren counted each and every single person in his group as something closer and dearer than just a friend – even Jean, although Eren would probably punch him in the face if he ever said as much out loud.

The point was Levi really did not want to make a bad impression here. He didn’t want to leave this gathering and have people think that Eren had picked a poor choice of a partner with him. He _really_ didn’t want to spend the rest of his life – whatever of it he shared with Eren, and he was hoping that was a lot – awkwardly avoiding eye contact with what amounted to the in-laws. 

It probably wasn’t meant to be as stressful as it was turning out to be, but Levi had never been real great at first impressions to begin with; wasn’t used to caring enough to put in the effort to seem anything more than a grumpy old man with a swearing problem and a seriously disturbing sense of humor.

Oh fuck, he was going to walk in this door and call somebody a piece of shit without even meaning to and then everybody was going to gasp loudly like they did that time Levi had accidentally called a small child a sin against humanity and then his friends were going to take Eren aside and whisper to him _loudly_ about all the people he’d be better off dating than Levi, and he was just going to have to stand there and –

Levi started violently as he felt something touch his hand, and when he looked down he realized Eren was weaving their fingers together.

“Hey,” he said, looking at Levi with an easy smile on his lips and warm concern crinkling the corners of his eyes. His thumb stroked across the back of Levi’s hands in rough but comforting circles. “Everything okay?”

Levi took in a quiet breath that probably wasn’t as discrete as he was hoping and squeezed Eren’s hand back as hard as he dared because he still wasn’t convinced that a little too much force wouldn’t shatter him. That would be just like him though; two seconds before he meets his boyfriend’s friends and he somehow breaks him while hand-holding.

He wasn’t sure if that would be a reflection on his coping abilities or Eren’s luck though.

“Just dandy,” he said with just the right amount of _please-don’t-ask-me-too-many-questions-right-now-because-I-might-just-puke_ sarcasm.

Eren seemed to get what he meant though, because his smile tipped over into a full blown grin that was entirely aimed at Levi’s borderline misery.

“You’re the one who wanted to come,” Eren reminded him and Levi scowled but before he could open his mouth to retort there was the sound of a lock unclicking and the door swung open without any preamble at all and rather suddenly Levi found himself staring at a chest that looked as wide as he was tall.

“Eren!” The owner of the chest roared, and it took everything Levi had not to wince as he leant in close to slap a bearish hand heavily on Eren’s shoulder in a way that looked just the wrong side of rough.

“Hey Reiner,” Eren smiled, clapping his hand once before shrugging it off with the nonchalance of somebody who did it on the regular.

Reiner smiled brightly before turning with a lot more speed than Levi had expected given his thickset frame to look at him with the same goofy smile and openly curious eyes. “This would be Levi then?”

 _Make a good impression_ , the voice at the back of Levi’s head whispered.

“No shit,” he said, and he didn’t know what was worst; the fact he’d just sassed a guy twice his size or the fact he sounded like he was half bored to death while doing it. Both were probably as bad as each other honestly, and Levi wished with a sudden and alarming fervor that he’d had the forethought to write himself up a script for the night because he was literally half a minute in and he could already feel it crashing and burning around him.

For one long moment Reiner just stared at him with high eyebrows and his mouth thin-pressed before turning to Eren and cracking into the widest, most blinding grin yet.

“I like this one,” he said, jerking his thumb at Levi. “I think you should keep him.”

Eren smiled back, squeezing Levi’s hand in what was quite obviously a silent _I told you so_. “That’s the plan,” Eren said.

Something warm bubbled up in Levi’s stomach, rushing up to smooth over his frayed nerves in a disgusting but unstoppable wave of sentimentality.

“Reiner?” Somebody called from back in the house. “Is that Eren?”

The comfortable feeling of affection crashed almost as quickly as it arose as Levi watched completely horrified as a willowy shape materialized behind Reiner, almost looming over him in a way that shouldn’t have been possible _and where the hell were all these tall ass bitches coming from, was there an illegal breeding ground for professional league basketball players in there or something_?

“Berthold,” Reiner greeted cheerfully, gesturing with one arm at the pair of them. “The boyfriend passes. I say he stays.”

Levi raised an eyebrow, trying to focus his attention away from the legitimate _titans_ surrounding him. “I would have stayed anyway.”

Reiner grinned at him. “That’s what I like to hear.”

“Reiner,” Berthold said again, slightly more urgent this time, “you need to let them through the door; you’re blocking it.”

Reiner rolled his eyes but took a step back, holding the door open with one thick arm hoisted just high enough so that they could duck under it and into the house. Levi deliberately did not let it burn his pride when Eren had to stoop to go past and Levi did not.

If life were an endless stream of limbo tournaments then Levi would be the indisputable winner.

“Armin’s in the kitchen trying to keep Jean from adding vodka to everything again,” Reiner said as he closed the door behind them with a solid _thunk_. “He’s given him the ‘no alcohol tonight’ lecture at least three times, but his selective listening has kicked in.”

“There’s no alcohol?” Levi asked curiously and Reiner gave him an innocent look.

“We’re all underage, man. We’d never do something as illegal as that.”

Eren snorted next to his ear and Levi didn’t even have to work to make his expression skeptical.

Reiner broke in an instant and Levi was starting to get the impression Reiner was probably one of those people who couldn’t stay serious for longer than half a minute at a time. He hoped he never tried to go into secret services for a career. “No drinking while Eren’s banged up half way to hell. Armin’s orders. Alcohol isn’t exactly good for a recovering concussion.”

It shouldn’t have made Levi so happy to hear such a simple sentence, but he had to fight against a smile tugging at his lips anyway because there was something about walking into this room and into the knowledge that Eren’s friends obviously cared about him as much as Levi had been hoping they did.

“I’m fine,” Eren protested. “Jesus, it was just one row of stitches. I’m feeling pretty good now.”

Levi turned to look over his shoulder at him with a completely unimpressed glare. “No.”

“But –.”

“ _No_.”

Eren sighed, rolling his eyes with an exaggerated groan as he shook his hand from Levi’s for long enough to reach up and begin unwinding his scarf. “I swear, you never let me have any fun.”

“That’s because your definition of fun has me fearing for your life,” Levi said dryly, before sighing and reaching up to pull Eren’s scarf free himself because Eren wasn’t the most coordinated at the best of times and having one arm out of commission had apparently robbed him of what little he had left.

“That’s because you’ve only had a chance to see me at my worst so far,” Eren argued as Levi stepped back to hang the scarf up by the door. “I’m not normally this…” He paused, looking for the right word. “Unlucky?”

“Lies,” Reiner grunted. “He’s _always_ this unlucky. Eren’s life is nothing but a black hole of misfortune. Just you wait man, you’ll get infected too one of these days.”

“I’ll take that risk,” Levi said sardonically and Eren beamed at him like he’d just given a particularly romantic confession before being bundled off into the living area by Reiner’s bulky arm. Levi watched him go in amusement before taking off his own coat and making the choice to go see Armin in the kitchen before the undoubtedly awkward introduction to the rest of Eren’s friends.

They were never going to be one of those couples that were going to be glued together at the hip, and Levi liked that Eren trusted him here – that he had faith that Levi was going to be able to make nice with the rest of his friends without an escort.

Levi shook out his coat, hung it neatly on a hook next to Eren’s – _his_ – scarf and followed the burble of noise that was coming from the room that wasn’t the one that Eren had been dragged in to.

The first impression Levi had as he pushed past the ajar door and into the kitchen was that he was probably going to have to be taking somebody else to hospital tonight because Armin looked about half a second from cutting off somebody’s fingers and Jean who was sitting at the table and flipping through mail order catalogues looked completely disinclined to do anything about it.

No, literally – there was a knife hovering above a chopping board and a round faced girl had her fingers under it, trying and spectacularly failing to ease away a piece of cheese with absolutely no sense of danger.

“Sasha!” Armin snapped, and Levi winced as Armin thudded the knife down where her fingers had been a split second before. “Fingers, please!”

“Sorry,” Sasha said, not looking particularly sorry at all. Before Armin could say another word she flounced out of the room, brushing past Levi and showing absolutely no interest in him. It probably had something to do with what looked like a platter of dip and biscuits tucked under her shirt. He watched her disappear into the living area with a raised brow and wondered if all of Eren’s friends had several screws loose.

Armin sighed loudly, but when he caught sight of Levi his expression melted into a kind, friendly smile that seemed at odds with the fact he’d nearly cut a close friend’s fingertips off for trying to smuggle some cheddar. “Levi, I didn’t hear you come in.”

Jean looked up sharply from the table and Levi shrugged, swinging the door closed behind him to block out a particularly raucous roll of laughter from out back. “We just got here, really. Do you need a hand with anything?”

Armin waved him off. “No, no. I’m fine. Take a seat.”

“Yeah,” Jean said with a grin, kicking the chair beside him out an inch or so. “Come, sit. Let us judge you in close quarters without Eren breathing down our necks.”

“Speaking of, where is he?” Armin asked as Levi took the seat politely.

“He got kidnapped at the door by the one that looks like a brick shithouse.”

“Reiner,” Jean and Armin said fondly as one. Armin cut another chunk of cheese with a solid thump. Levi was starting to become a little alarmed with how viciously and accurately Armin was wielding that knife. He didn’t think it was intentionally meant to be an intimidation tactic, but fuck it was doing the job none the less.

“How long are you guys staying tonight?” Jean asked with perhaps a little more curiosity than was really needed.

Levi shrugged. “Until Eren wants to leave or you kick me out.”

“Oh, nobody’s kicking you out. You have no clue how long we’ve waited for this. The shit I’ve put up with from that child.” Jean gave a put upon sigh and flopped the magazine he’d been reading closed. “I really should have started charging him by the hour every time he opened his mouth.”

Levi couldn’t help but notice that Jean sounded almost as fond as he did sincerely grumpy. He was starting to realize he’d probably never get a handle on the mindfuck that was Eren and Jean’s friendship.

“He’s exaggerating,” Armin said, but he was smiling anyway. “We’re all very pleased to meet you.” He paused awkwardly. “Well, pleased to meet you outside of a hospital, anyway.”

“Speak for yourself, I got to see him at the restaurant earlier,” Jean said proudly. “I’m boyfriend scouter number one.”

“Only because you crashed his date,” Armin said without turning around. “Which I know we’ve told you before not to do. Remember the time Eren –.”

“I remember,” Jean interrupted, wincing and looking at Armin’s nonchalant back accusingly. “And you swore you’d never let him do that again.”

“Only if you swore to stop trying to embarrass him in front of his dates for kicks,” Armin said calmly.

Levi sat silently. It seemed Eren’s friends came equipped with a story for every occasion and it was best to let them bicker and unfold it themselves. They made his student days look positively tame by comparison, and Levi had gotten kicked out of two faculties before Erwin had convinced him to try business as a major.

“Anyway,” Armin said, he finished what he was doing and set the knife aside, turning to offer Levi a plate and a truly benevolent smile. “Cheese?”

.

After that there were more friends than Levi knew how to keep track of.

There was Armin and Jean of course, and then Reiner and Bertholdt from the doorway earlier; but there was also Sasha from the kitchen and Connie who was Sasha-from-the-kitchen’s boyfriend and then Marco who was Jean’s; at some point somebody webcammed up the out-of-state friends and Levi got to meet Ymir and her girlfriend Christa and a small gaggle of others that he got the impression just seemed to flit about the edges of the group.

It shouldn’t have been as much as it was to him but it got a tad overwhelming as the night wore on. They were so many and so friendly and talked like they’d known each other for all of their lives. Some of them had, Levi figured, and the inside jokes just went right over his head.

It made his collection of close friends look positively pathetic. Considering he sported two, tops, it probably wasn’t that hard. Still, knowing Eren was a social creature and seeing it in action were two completely different things. He could scrawl through his abundant facebook a thousand times a day and not get the snapshot of perfect popularity he was seeing now.

People just… gravitated towards Eren. Eren had all this charisma, but he was also blindingly in the dark about it. When Eren spoke, people went quiet to listen. His friends were so frighteningly at ease with him, looked to Eren for unconscious cues. It wasn’t deference nor was it respect. It was just a magnetic pull about him that absolutely nobody was immune to.

And it honestly baffled Levi, because Eren wasn’t smart like Armin or unstoppable like Mikasa seemed to be; he didn’t have Jean’s wryness or Marco’s softness or Reiner’s bearish joy or Connie and Sasha’s humour or even any of the other traits that were so clear in his friends, but he was just… Eren. Completely indescribable and at ease in his own skin.

And Levi was so fucking proud of him.

(and a little proud of himself, really, because he bagged that shit, good job to him, a+ boyfriend apprehending skills.)

By the time they were ready to leave Armin’s house Levi felt like he’d lived through a lifetime and a half; the social interaction weighed on him, but not unpleasantly so, and when Armin and Jean took him aside at the door he found himself going with them with ease.

“Thanks for coming tonight,” Armin said earnestly, “I know you and Eren probably had plans.”

Levi tried very hard not to think of the plans that he and Eren may or may not have had. “It’s fine. This was – good?”

Jean smiled at him. “You don’t sound so sure.”

Levi smiled back. “Oh, I’m sure. Less sure about the appropriate adjective, maybe. Good feels a little underwhelming, all things considered.”

“I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment,” Armin laughed, and it was a nice, soft sound, and Levi found himself relaxing into it unconsciously. It was very easy to see the way Armin offered an ease to the edges of the group that might have otherwise been too sharp. Not that Levi doubted for a second that Armin was probably the sharpest of them all. “You’re welcome to stop by again,” Armin offered.

“We’ll see,” Levi said, unwilling to commit any more of his time when he already felt like what he had with Eren was too short. Nothing had gone according to plan so far, and he was desperate for the two of them to just get a moment between them.

There was a sound like thunder and Levi turned to see Reiner laughing with a hand on Eren’s shoulder, the other pushing something into his grip that Levi couldn’t quite make out from where he stood but had set Eren’s face into a brilliant red. Beside them Connie was cackling, delighting in god knows what.

“Yeah,” Jean said, “you should probably go rescue him before Reiner breaks him.” Jean wrinkled his nose at Eren’s slinged arm. “Well, breaks him worse, I should say.”

“Right,” Levi said, “Thanks again, for all of this.”

“No problem,” Armin said and then he flicked his gaze over to Eren for just a second then back to Levi. “Just, take care of him, please?”

 _You don’t need to ask_ , Levi thought. “Of course,” he said, and he patiently allowed Jean to give him a friendly shoulder pat and accepted Armin’s polite handshake before meandering over to Eren and tugging the scarf from beside the door to toss back around his neck.

“Come on,” he said fondly as Eren struggled to straighten it so it wasn’t strangling him. “It’s time to go.”

.

Outside the air was even chillier than it’d been before and Levi wished he’d had the forethought to call a cab instead of suggesting they head back on foot. It wouldn’t have been too long of a trip, and, truth be told, he may have been angling for a romantic stroll, but he could feel the bite beneath his coat already.

“Okay,” Eren said as they reached the end of the street. “Okay, yeah. This isn’t going to work.”

“You want to call a cab after all?”

Eren shook his head. Levi raised his eyebrow at him. “Are you suggesting I carry you back as a princess then?”

Eren huffed. “I don’t doubt you could, but no, that wasn’t what I meant either.” He paused and craned his head, seemingly looking out over the streets. “You know, my college isn’t that far from here.”

“And? You want to go for night classes or something?”

“No, I mean we could always stay in my dorm tonight.” Eren tossed him a sideways smile. “I said as much earlier, didn’t I?”

Levi thought on it, visions of the big bed back at the hotel and the very literal steamy shower from earlier right behind his eyes. “I know, but…”

“The hotel will still be there tomorrow, Levi,” Eren said, amused. He reached out with his good hand and took Levi’s and Levi was maybe starting to become a little addicted to the feeling of those fingers slotted between his. “Just let me take you home, yeah?”

Levi couldn’t help but laugh at that, high and loud in the silent night air. He gave Eren’s fingers a squeeze. “Well,” he said around his smile, “when you put it like _that_ , I’d be delighted, Eren Jaeger.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, wow. Wow. Where to begin? Other than I am so ridiculously, terribly sorry. Real life got a bit away from me as it does. An enormous thank you to absolutely everybody who has stuck by me over the past year and sent me messages checking in on this story; you have no idea what that meant to know people were still interested. 
> 
> Hopefully now that I've got more time on my hands and I'm gotten past what was blocking me, YHBC can get back on track. If all goes well, I might perhaps be looking at more regular posting. 
> 
> Once again, I'm so sorry, and always, always feel free to come over to my tumblr and ask me anything (glenflower.)


	20. The first time

By the time they got to Eren’s room they were clinging to each other, smiling with cold flushed cheeks and pretending like the weather was anywhere near icy enough that they’d had to bundle together so close.

Being on campus like this felt a little strange for Levi when he himself had graduated ten years ago, but also pleasantly nostalgic. It did not, however, help soothe the irrational part him that couldn’t help but focus on the age gap between them.

He’d been trying his hardest not to lately, because he didn’t like the implications it had on the trust between them, but he couldn’t help the small, frightened voice inside him that was always wondering if this relationship was a disservice to Eren somehow.

“Levi?” Eren said, and Levi snapped his attention back. Eren gave him a smile that was as warm as his skin felt cold. “You need to let go of my hand for a moment or we’re going to be standing out here all day.” ‘

“Oh,” Levi said blankly and did, although he did not take a step back. Eren jostled him playfully a little as he fished the keys out of his pocket and leant forward to unlock the door.

At some point during their walk home Eren had undone the scarf around his neck so it hung limp and loose about his shoulders. His sling, too, was gone, tucked into his back pocket somewhere. With his head tilted forward now Levi could see the naked nape of his neck. It was a strangely fixating sight.

Levi smirked and took the chance to lean down while Eren was preoccupied, tucking his fingers into the neck of his shirt to pull it a little lower and kissing the tempting patch of bare skin.

Eren didn’t flinch exactly, but he jolted a little in surprise, fingers fumbling with the key. “The door, Levi.”

Levi huffed a laugh and shifted his lips to kiss just below Eren’s ear. “What about it?”

Eren craned his neck to try and glare at him and Levi took the chance to set his palm against the door and although he was too short to truly pin Eren to it, he stepped in close and took the kiss he’d been waiting all night for.

Eren sighed at his lips, humoring Levi for a moment, before pushing him away with what could only really be called a gentle head-butt.

“Door,” he said again, and Levi grinned and stepped back to let him fight it out with the lock, feigning patience as Eren finally managed to wrestle the door open. Levi followed him inside, and although he had every intention of kissing Eren stupid he was momentarily distracted by being in Eren’s space.

Levi walked around the room curiously, fingers skimming along Eren’s bookshelf. “It’s clean,” he said in surprise.

“I told you it would be,” Eren said defensively as he paused to carefully drape Levi’s scarf at the hook on the back of the door. The tender precision he hung it with, the way his fingers skimmed along its folds, was heartwarming in a way Levi couldn’t word. It wasn’t that Eren was careless with his own things, exactly, but he had an awareness, a carefulness, when holding anything of Levi’s that warmed him right to his core.

“I wasn’t sure,” Levi said absently as he came to a pause at the desk, eyes caught on the various art books that were tucked in the corner. He pulled a battered one free and started flicking through it, smiling fondly at the little notes Eren had tucked into the margin, the way he’d dog eared pages he’d liked and traced out his own little copies next to his favourite pictures. “It’s nice though.”

Eren gave a little laugh, coming in beside Levi and resting his forehead on his shoulder. “The cleanliness?”

“The room,” Levi corrected. Although it was clean it was hardly neat, the shelves stacked in organized chaos, posters and photos spread across the room in an endless collage, art that Levi recognized as Eren’s and some he couldn’t recognize at all. “It’s… it’s very you.”

Eren smiled into his neck, good hand coming to rest on Levi’s waist. “I can’t tell if you’re complimenting me or not.”

“Neither can I,” Levi admitted, closing the book he’d been flicking through and lifting a hand to run his fingers through Eren’s hair. “But I like it.”

There was enough light spilling from the courtyard and through Eren’s window that Levi could see passably without switching on the lamps in the room. It was a pleasant buttery yellow that painted silver streaks into Eren’s hair and turned his skin gold.

He had to admit to himself that perhaps this hadn’t been a bad idea. Eren seemed to belong to this room, to this moment, and like this with Eren warm at his side and his soft hair beneath his fingers, Levi couldn’t help but feel an adoration that walked daringly close to worship.

“You’ve gone quiet,” Eren said, lifting his head and squinting through the gloom at Levi although his hand didn’t leave his waist. “What’s wrong?”

Levi looked at him fondly, ran his fingers through his hair one more time before dragging him down for a kiss. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said, and he could feel all the pathetically sappy things he’d been thinking about burning at his lips but he bit them back with considerable effort, because whatever it was he and Eren had here in this moment, it was still too new to him to try and put it to speech. Instead he kissed him one more time and said, “I was just thinking what a fucking dork you are.”

Instantly Eren’s face scrunched up and yes, even that was endearing, and Levi pulled him back down to swallow what would have doubtlessly been a very thorough objection with his lips.

“You haven’t even let me give you the tour yet,” Eren murmured between breaths and Levi couldn’t help but grin.

“I’ve seen all there is to see.”

“Not – not quite,” Eren said, stumbling a little on his words when Levi slid in a step closer so he could settle his hands around to sit on the low of Eren’s back.

Levi raised a brow, and pulled away a little even as Eren attempted to kiss him again. “Oh? Enlighten me, then, to what I’ve missed in your grand tour.”

Eren smiled back at him, and it was so terribly innocent looking that Levi instantly knew what he was thinking. His stomach shivered and dropped just that notch or two lower.

“Well,” Eren said, sneaking a quick kiss to the corner of Levi’s mouth, “I haven’t introduced you to my bed yet.”

He was very aware of where they both were, of Eren feeling so warm beneath his hands, of all the touches they’d started and not had a chance to finish. “Yeah,” he said, a little distractedly, “yeah, that sounds good. You should introduce us.”

Eren laughed, and Levi could tell that half of it was _at_ him although he couldn’t bring himself to care. He glanced over his shoulder where the bed sat a few feet away pushed to the wall, and then he glanced back at Eren and smiled. He took Eren’s hand in his and started walking backwards as nonchalantly as he could when he wasn’t sure he wasn’t about to trip at any moment.

Eren laughed harder. “ _Levi -.”_

“Too late,” Levi grinned, shifting his grip to Eren’s elbow and settling his other hand up on his shoulder, pulling him flush to him and dropping all his weight backwards without looking.

They landed heavily, bouncing on the mattress so that Eren’s shoulder caught him uncomfortably in the ribs and Levi’s head just narrowly avoided knocking into the wall. Eren was laughing still, even as Levi rolled them over so he had Eren against the sheets, his hands under his shirt and his lips against the heaving of his throat.

It was stupid, childish and completely ridiculous. Levi would never be caught dead acting like this with anybody else, but the feeling of Eren smiling when he finally managed to kiss him, the fond way he ran his hands down Levi’s spine, it was well worth it.

For a long time they simply kissed, taking the time they hadn’t before to feel each other out, grow familiar to hot skin and the nooks that made a person up. Eren had a spot just to the left of his ribs that drained him of any breath and Levi couldn’t quite cover a shudder when Eren’s fingers ghosted with just the right pressure down his spine.

Somewhere along the line Levi managed to get Eren to still long enough to drag his shirt off, ever careful of the bundle of bandages and plaster that was his bad arm, and he took a long minute to press him to the sheets and stare even as Eren went red beneath his attention.

“You too,” Eren huffed breathlessly, squirming as Levi pressed a palm to his chest to keep him steady, and when Levi did he made a bit of a show of it, enjoying the rapt way Eren watched him more than he really should.

Their pants took a little more effort, but they managed it, fingers hooking at each other and knuckles knocking as they unclicked belts and rattled down zippers. Even though Eren got his stripped off and tossed to the side first, he was more of a hindrance than a help to Levi with the way he couldn’t seem to keep his hands still long enough to get them off.

It was comforting, though, to be reminded that Eren found him attractive, that Eren _wanted_ him, even though there were days when Levi barely wanted himself.

Eren was always stunning, but like this he was something else, and even though Levi wanted to keep touching him so badly, he couldn’t help but hyperfocus on all the small differences between them, the reasons why being allowed to touch Eren like this was nothing short of a miracle.

And now that he was, that they were, Levi felt something that he refused to call nerves bubbling a little too fiercely in the pit of his stomach.

“We’re not even at the hotel,” he said.

“So?” Eren murmured as he pressed his lips against Levi’s throat in a way that was way too distracting.

 _So what_? Levi thought hazily for a moment, fingers gripping the duvet either side of Eren as he fought to maintain a grip on himself and not just let his dick lead the charge.

“You’re hurt.”

Eren hummed. “Not enough to stop me doing this.”

“It’s your first time.” The words came out between Levi’s struggled breathing.

Eren dug his fingers into Levi’s shoulders. “Levi, if you insist on taking this back to the hotel, the only thing I’m going to remember about tonight is you made me walk six blocks with a boner you refused to do anything about.”

Levi was so wound up tight from nerves and _not wanting to fuck up_ that Eren’s words startled a strangled laugh out of him. Beneath him Eren’s mouth twitched a little at the corners and Levi could see how hard he was trying to remain stern.

“It’s a nice hotel though.”

“I know it is. Nobody’s saying we can’t have sex there as well. Right now though, I would really, really like it if you would just stop talking and touch me.”

“We don’t even have –.”

“Yes, we do,” Eren said, so quickly that Levi almost didn’t catch the words and Levi paused for a moment, squinting down at Eren’s rapidly reddening face.

“You keep condoms and lube in your room?”

Eren’s whole body seemed to flush, a delicious crawling red that bloomed in splotches up his neck to climb his face and leave the very tips of his ears bright. He squirmed a little, tightening his grip on Levi’s shoulder and dragging him down so that Eren could bury his face in the crook of Levi’s neck like there was a chance in hell that Levi hadn’t seen how mortified he was.

“No, that’s not…” He hesitated. “In the pocket of my jeans.”

Suddenly Levi understood. “This is what Reiner and what’s-his-face gave you earlier, isn’t it?”

“Oh my god, what does it matter where it came from? It’s here, and that’s all that counts.” Eren’s voice was muffled against Levi’s skin as he hugged him tight and Levi wasn’t sure where this sudden sense of self-consciousness came from seeing as how Eren so far had been very nearly shameless, but it was fucking adorable.

“Okay,” Levi said soothingly, even though his own insides were squirming like nothing he’d experienced before. “Alright, I mean, so long as you’re sure…”

“ _Yes_ ,” Eren said, and he almost sounded exasperated now. “Yes, Levi, I am very, very sure.”

Levi took in a breath and kissed the side of Eren’s temple before pulling away and clambering off the bed with as much dignity as he could manage when he was already on the way to sporting an erection that might kill a lesser man.

Eren’s jeans were crumpled at least a meter from the bed because clearly Eren had kicked them off like a professional soccer player or something and it took Levi a moment or two of fumbling to get his nerve-shaken fingers into the pockets long enough to pull out two crinkly packages, a condom and a small lube sachet.

There was only a small indistinct square of light leaking in around the edges of the curtains, so it took a moment for Levi to realize, but –

“Eren?”

Eren made a small impatient noise behind him.

“Both of these are flavoured.”

There was the sound of hastily crinkled sheets and Levi peered cautiously over his shoulder to see that Eren had buried his face in the crook of his elbow. He was red all over again. “Just ignore it, okay?”

Levi bit his lip and glanced back at the packages in his hand. He wanted to ignore it, but…

“They’re not even the _same_ flavor.”

“Levi, if you happen to have any other condoms and shit on you, I’d be more than willing to use those. But if you don’t, just shut up and pretend you didn’t see.”

Levi wobbled back over to the bed and tried to pretend like he wasn’t slowly dying inside because _sex wasn’t meant to be this difficult and everything was going wrong and this was Eren’s first time and Levi was just fucking it up so bad –_

“Hey,” Eren said, hauling himself upright and smoothing a hand over Levi’s cheek the instant he was within arm’s reach, brow crinkling and lips thinning. “You need to stop freaking out for just one minute, okay?”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Levi confessed, and he tried to make his tone flippant and nonchalant like he was joking, but the words dragged themselves out of his mouth and flopped between them like a dead fish or something intent on killing any and all romantic mood they may or may not have had going.

He was amazed Eren wasn’t already reaching for his clothes at this point. If it were Levi on the other end of this shit he’d probably be climbing out the damn window or something to escape his awkward, blundering boyfriend.

He’d definitely had sex before. He fucking swore it was the truth. This going to pieces before Eren thing was new and frightening and really, really confusing because Eren was handling this embarrassingly well considering Levi knew he’d never really gotten further than sticking his hand down somebody’s pants a time or two.

“You were so smooth in the shower earlier,” Eren said, and the little shit was grinning at him even as he rubbed his thumb over Levi’s cheekbone in a disgustingly soothing gesture. “What happened to all that confidence?”

“That was different,” Levi said automatically.

“How? Because I wasn’t asking you to put your dick in me?”

“I –…” Levi opened his mouth, frowned, and closed it again. “… Yes?” He said hesitatingly.

“Well that’s just stupid then,” Eren said, and his tone hit that level of light and carefree that Levi had been fucking aiming for. “I don’t know how I could make it any clearer that I want this.” He paused for a moment, squinting at Levi. “Do _you_ want this?”

“Yes,” Levi said instantly, because he’d thought that much was obvious.

Eren’s face broke back into a relaxed smile and in one sinuous movement he had his hand on Levi’s bicep and was tugging him forward as he eased backwards on to the bed. “Then what’s the problem?”

Levi let himself be drawn forward so he was hovering over Eren, hands spread on either side of his shoulders and condom and lube somewhere back down near Eren’s hip. He looked… well, he looked flushed and a bit tense, a lot injured, but also remarkably patient considering Levi could still feel his hard-on pressing against his knee.

Other than that though – he looked fucking gorgeous.

Levi was completely unsurprised by that development. Eren Jaeger looked good naked and needy on a bed; the image of him with dark eyes and sex hair might make headlines, but the knowledge wouldn’t go surprising anyone.

“Well?” Eren prompted, and his hand glided smoothly down Levi’s arm, one of his legs tucking in between the backs of Levi’s knees to tip him closer in a way that was definitely restoring interest to a certain part of Levi’s body.

Eren was warm and close and very attractive – and Levi suddenly felt very stupid for worrying that this was something Eren might not want, that he was going to fuck this up for him.

Eren Jaeger never did anything he didn’t want to do and Levi really should know that by now.

“Yeah,” he said, and he creaked forward without prompting to press his lips against the hollow of Eren’s throat and the feeling of Eren’s breath catching beneath the curve of his mouth was beautifully enticing in a way he’d never be able to fully put into words. “I guess we don’t have a problem after all.”

.

Once Levi got his shit together, things managed to get back on track so fast it left him almost dizzy.

He took his time with Eren, kissing him long and slow and trying to draw as much of his focus to him as he possibly could while he sunk his wet hand lower and lower between his legs. Eren’s fingernails were biting into his shoulder, but he was kissing Levi back with an almost desperate enthusiasm, and when Levi finally sunk a finger inside him he only pulled away for a moment to suck in a harsh breath.

“Are you okay?” Levi asked, face pressed down into the crook of Eren’s neck so he was whispering just beneath his ear. “Do you need me to stop?”

Eren’s fingers dug deeper into his skin, but he could feel him shaking his head, pulling Levi in closer and working his breaths out into an even stream of hot pants that gusted against Levi’s collarbone.

Levi kissed the skin closest to his lips and gave Eren a moment to get used to the feeling before he started again with intent.

Levi was ridiculously turned-on and every part of him that Eren was touching felt too hot but not hot enough all at once, but he paced himself as well as he could, working Eren up to three fingers with such slowness he could feel Eren going to pieces beneath him; shaking and trembling and making small noises that he couldn't quite stop.

Levi tilted his fingers and pushed upwards and Eren gasped so loudly it was almost a shout, hips flying off the bed and hands practically pulling Levi bodily down onto him. “Enough,” he stammered out. “Christ, Levi. If you keep that up I’m going to….”

“Yeah,” Levi managed to choke out, because it was really hard to keep his thoughts together and coherent. “Yeah, just let me…”

He pulled back for a moment, slipping his fingers from Eren as gently as he could but he saw him wince in the pale light anyway. It took a moment of blind fumbling but he managed to find the abandoned condom and rip it open with slick, fumbling fingers.

Below him Eren watched silently as Levi set his hands to the hollow of Eren’s hips and pressed forward, watching almost awed as he sunk into Eren’s body with agonizing slowness, giving Eren both the time to adjust and the chance to change his mind even as heat raced up and down his spine in a burning arc.

“Levi,” Eren hissed, sounding like all the breath had been knocked out of him, “Levi, thank you, but I’m fine – _please_ keep going.”

“Shit,” Levi said, because he had nothing else left in him, and he reached one hand around to tuck behind Eren’s head so he could hold him steady enough to kiss, and then he thrust forward the rest of the way.

Eren gasped loudly, not entirely pleasantly, and his knees locked at Levi’s waist.

Levi couldn’t help but laugh, slightly winded at Eren’s lips. “ _Now_ you stop rushing me, you fucking idiot.”

Eren’s eyes were squeezed closed but his lips twitched against Levi’s. “It’s… it’s more than I was expecting.”

“Thanks,” Levi said, and Eren kneed him a little in the side in response. Sobering up he smoothed his hand along Eren’s forehead, noting with concern the way he was trembling. “Hey, hey. We can take this as slow as you want, okay?”

Eren nodded, still tense but breathing evenly now. “Kiss me,” he said, “please.”

Levi did gladly, needing a distraction from the burning in his gut and the itch in his skin. Eren kissed back desperately, clinging to the back of Levi’s neck, and between them they eased the shivers out from beneath Eren’s skin.

“Okay?” Levi asked softly.

Eren nodded. “It’s just… intense. I wanted it – I _want_ it. I just didn’t think it’d be like _this_.”

Levi studied him carefully, one hand on his sweat slick cheek. “And that’s good?”

Eren smiled at him, red lips and dark eyes. “It’s very good.”

Slowly they got to moving, Eren holding carefully to Levi even as the tension slowly bled from him and his quiet gasps sounded more and more like the air he couldn’t catch had less to do with pain and more to do with pleasure.

It’d been a long time for Levi, and Eren was so devastatingly attractive, slick and golden and warm, and Levi knew he wouldn’t last long, that this would be over almost as quickly as it started, but he was determined to write his touch into Eren’s skin so that when he remembered their first time he remembered it with a burn in his gut and a smile at his lips.

“Fuck,” Eren said, and then, “Levi, _fuck_.”

His nails were biting in Levi’s skin, his heels sharp in Levi’s back, and he pulled him closer, urged him faster, and he was shaking again, but from an endless build of tension that was tipping ever closer to a crescendo, and Levi could feel every tremble on his skin.

Levi had one hand hooked under Eren’s thigh, the other on his waist, and he was staring transfixed at the sight Eren made beneath. He was only hazily aware of the noise they were making, everything taut around him and waiting to snap.

Eren’s hand left the back of Levi’s neck, fumbling down so he could drag Levi’s hand off his waist and to where he was hard enough to hurt. “ _Touch me_ ,” he hissed, and Levi did, although he barely had the coordination for it.

He barely managed to stroke him twice before Eren was arching on the bed, coming all over Levi’s fist, gasping hard enough to scrape his throat raw and bruising Levi where they touched.

Levi kept ahold of him throughout, hand slippery and grip probably too tight, because Eren like this was a completely unconscious kind of beauty and Levi was so close to tumbling over the edge with him that he didn’t want to blink and miss it.

Eren; head back, throat bobbing, skin slick, legs parted to rest on Levi’s thighs, brow furrowed and mouth open endlessly, one hand back at Levi’s neck, the other cradled carefully to his chest like he was barely coherent enough to remember how broken he was.

And it was too much for Levi who had been on fire since the first time they’d kissed.

Levi came holding onto Eren like he was all that kept him in reality.

In that hazy second of deafness that followed Levi thought although he didn’t say:

_I really am in love with this kid._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (safety psa: pls check your flavoured lube/condoms are actually okay for penetrative sex irl because most aren't) 
> 
> This is a little later than I sort of said it would be (wow what a surprise) and half the actual sex scene has been typed and waiting for at LEAST a year, but here it is, here is the thing I kept saying would happen.


End file.
